“My vision is that we would see information as a strategic asset,” says Cheryl Roby, Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks & Information Integration (DASD/NII), DOD.

“As valuable to us as the ships we sail, the planes we fly, and the troops that we command, that we would see that net-centric operations allow the humans to leverage the power of that information, to be able to deal with the uncertainties that we have, the challenges, the needs, the unanticipated partners and the circumstances.”

Robey explains that in the future as we actually become net-centric we will be able  to go across the entire enterprise from the highest levels of headquarters down to the troops in the field who are looking at insurgents and working and tracking, down to maybe a civilian in a depot who is looking for a new supplier.

“When we look at the knowledge that we have with our net-centric operations that would be timely and trusted information at our fingertips and that the simple objective that we all have in mind and the reason all of us are here today is that we want to simply save lives.”

Robey believes that net-centric operations are going to allow government to be able to do that. “One of the things as we move ahead and we deliver the power of this information, there are many challenges. But I think we are all up for the challenge and for us to look forward to that in the future.”

According to Roby, one of the ways that DOD has realized is to transform they need to stop looking at systems as the way we need to do our work but to look at portfolios. She says there is a “big change is our management oversight functions that are looking at a threat that is based on what do we need as a capability for us to have in the department and not having us looking just at the systems.”

DOD officials have agreed during the Quadrennial Defense Review that an experiment looking at portfolios is the way for to transform and to manage. “This gives us an opportunity to look at net-centric operations as a portfolio; what’s in that portfolio; where there are some overlaps and duplication; and where there are some improvements and capabilities we need to enhance as we look at the resource process.”

Taking this concept and putting it in motion is tricky according to Roby. “Obviously there are opportunities for us to work through over the course of the next year the improvements that we need to do. It’s challenging but we are looking forward to the outcomes that will bring us new capabilities in the department.”

And when it comes to information assurance and net-centricity, Roby says DOD no longer can look to patches to fix their IA problems, they have to look at securing the data itself.  “It only has a short life span when that data is valuable so us getting together and figuring out ways that we can secure the data, we are looking at cross domain solutions.”

Roby is looking both horizontally and vertically across organizations and down into the depths of where the information is coming from so that DOD can move into a more appropriate way to bring forward the business, and the intelligence apparatus meet the trusted information sharing needs of their customer – warfighter.  
 

“What I would envision in the next three to five years is being able to provide capabilities to the warfighter in a very speedy, rapid, flexible, agile fashion,” says Brig. General Dave Warner, Director for Command and Control Programs, DISA. “To me the key to doing that is this federated development certification environment.”

BG Warner explains that this is a collaborative environment by which all participants can come forward with their ideas that are going to satisfy the warfighter’s requirements. Then capability modules can be developed and the environment can be used as a gateway to the Global Information Grid (GIG).

“It’ll be a gateway that has the testers, the requirements, the developers all in there together and again making sure that as you recognize that you are satisfying the requirements, that you are also doing the testing and the certification,” says BG Warner.

The result is rolling out capability modules that are standardized, that have the information assurance built in not bolted on, and that the warfighter’s needs are satisfied. “And once you have this factory up and operating you can do this in a very agile fast fashion,” says BG Warner, “so you keep the warfighter from having to create their own solutions out in the field. We are going to do it for them.”

While standard capability modules may be a reality in the near future, DISA has been working hard to get the pieces necessary to make it happen in place.

“We have had a phenomenal year at DISA,” says BG Warner. “When you look at going to net-centric operations, we kind of break it down to three areas. First of all there is the network operations piece itself.”

According to BG Warner, you have to have the infrastructure from which everyone can communicate from which that data can be made available and from which that information can be shared across all domains. Through the JTFGNO DISA has ensured that that infrastructure is protected and is available. And it has been tested to jointly with the services and other agencies to ensure that it can in fact protect and defend that network.

“We have taken several measures throughout the year to provide increased protection and to demonstrate again that this is a holistic network not made up of separate entities out there doing their own thing,” notes BG Warner. “So in the governance aspect of that I think we have made tremendous strides in the past year. As part of that network operations is providing the capability to store your information and to get your services taken care of centrally, and from our Digital Enterprise Computer Centers (DECC), again we have increased capacity and increased the ability to take on more and more of our customers’ needs and provide that for them rather than having to go out and do their own substantiation.”

From these Digital Enterprise Computer Centers, DISA has developed the idea of capacity on demand where if a customer needs something, they can get it on a moment’s notice. “Again you don’t have to go out and procure that. That enables us to have more of a centralized focus and a way to provide services.”

Finally BG Warner says net-centric enterprise services had a great year. “They have brought to us a collaboration tool used across the enterprise. We have just put out the second tool so now our customers have a choice on what they want to use. And again folks don’t have to go out and spend their own money and get their own contracts to provide these kinds of services.”

In the area of Command and Control, DISA moved toward having an infrastructure that is across the enterprise, where each of the Services gets what they need from net-centric enterprise services concentrating on just the application piece of Command and Control without having to build their own infrastructure.

“What that allows us to do is move away from these stovepipe solutions that we have had in the past,” says BG Warner. “The Services were allowed to come out and develop their own solutions to command and control. So these were stovepipes, so data was not shared, so you had everything from the hardware to the operating systems to the applications all being specific to that service. Again you could not share across and so we are coming out with a net enabled command capability.”

BG Warner says “we are going to milestone B mid September and then we are actually going to go to a milestone C in March of ’08 and bring capability to the warfighter”

“This is a joint solution, we’ve got all the Services on board with us, so they are in the tent with us helping us ensure that we can migrate off those stovepipes, bring that functionality forward at the same time satisfy our warfighter joint forces command as the lead, their needs and do it in a much faster rapid fashion. And again from a net-centric stand point. So I am very excited and I’ll get into more details as we proceed.”

“At Cisco we believe that everything that flies, drives, walks or sails will become a note on the network,” says Terry Morgan, Director, Net-Centric Strategies, Global Government Solutions Group, Cisco Systems, Inc.

Morgan explains that at the infrastructure level, Cisco has seen continued growth of unified communications, where as new data centers come on board they are becoming part of the network. He notes there has been significant progress in the development of IPv6 and the introduction of secure information sharing architecture.

“We’ve had our IP interoperability and communications system brought down to a PC level device so it can be incident ready and not just reside in a network room,” says Morgan. He also reports that the Cisco Global Government Solutions group has developed improved protocols that interact better with routers to facilitate the movement of data.

At the operational level, “we’ve seen what we call the opportunity tempo, a slight play on terms of op tempo that at Cisco, we’ve had to drive power to the edge so that we manage our portfolios at lower levels,” says Morgan. “We’ve got to allow teams to work, to collaborate on their own, make operational level business decisions.”

Morgan sees Cisco taking net-centricity to the next level of leveraging information for superiority, opening up new opportunities for defense and business to team together.

“We see that as a business one of our first requirements is helping our customer the team deploy the best possible current combinations of technology,” explains Morgan. “Then it’s about being prepared for the future of the mission to the extent that we can adapt and stretch technology and move technology forward in a way that services our customers’ requirements.”

The network becomes the platform that allows information sharing. “And if we can share information in a trusted way, the trusted information will allow commanders to make timely decisions and very importantly in today’s world, operators can take precise action,” notes Morgan.

He says that given the information at the low level, in a granular manner, commanders can act, get the job done and without some of the collateral damage and other things that in this world today are reported in the press.

“So the whole idea of the network as a platform, sharing information in a timely way will happen. And what we see going forward is that IPv6 will be one of the convergent points here,” adds Morgan. “Because it’s going to help us in the mobility area, it’s going to help us in the security area, and obviously as we expand the number of nodes on this network, it’s going to give us the IP addresses we need to have many devices, thousands of devices, millions of devices, on the network contributing information, delivering information and providing support to our commanders and our war fighters on the ground.”

Security is always an issue

If you move information, there’s always some threat and some risk. “However if we have greater control which, we see IPv6 giving us from the security perspective, over the individual IP addresses,” says Morgan, “you have more knowledge about the network. It’s more distinct granular knowledge about the network that then allows you obviously to have better control of the network because you know what’s there. It’s not hiding behind a false IP address.”

“None of this works without trust in the information and trust in the network that provides it and trust in the individuals that use it. It’s that trust model, each depending upon one another that’s going to make net-centricity successful.”

“Our Number One priority is clearly to support the warfighter,” says John Meincke, VP, Air Force and Navy Operations, Federal Systems, Unisys Corporation, “whether you are talking about the warfighting mission or the business systems and the other support mechanisms that are out there.”

To meet that priority, Unisys is doing quite a few things actually to support net-centric warfare.

“We talked about portfolios and we talked about communities of interest. The first two of those communities of interest were Blue Force Tracking and Time Sensitive Targeting,” says Meincke Unisys was the prime contractor actually working those data architectures.

“But it’s all about the data,” Meincke explains. “And so what we are doing is taking all those things that it takes to do Blue Force Tracking for example and looking at it as a vertical. All of the elements and all of the things that it takes to make that mission successful in the Department of Defense is exactly what that is targeted to do.”

According to Meincke, Time Sensitive Targeting is similar in that it is a very vertical construct of all those things that it takes to make Time Sensitive Targeting work across land, sea and air domains. “Then of course those have to work in tandem because you are going to operate under the same command and control systems in support of the Joint Command,” says Meincke. “So we look at all of that. What it takes to run those vertical elements, Time Sensitive Targeting and Blue Force Tracking, and then what it takes to cross domain into the command and control business.”

Meincke also says a benefit of net-centricity is the ability to go beyond where DOD was back in the Gulf War where it was basically an air mission out of necessity at the time and the Air Force did a great job of getting iron on target in about 40 minutes or thereabouts.

“We see in the net-centric world the benefits being land, sea and air leveraged into that same mix so that the control sees the best solution,” says Meincke. “In this case it might have been the Special Forces guy with the sniper gun across the street that wasn’t even part of the equation, because we didn’t have the information, we didn’t have the net centric strategy solution in place yet. So that’s one of the big benefits that they see and we are working towards.”

Another capability Unisys is getting ready to launch is Stealth Net. “Stealth Net will be a capability that will enable us to collapse networks that are currently individual,” says Meincke. “And do it in such a way that we have lots of advantages in terms of the bandwidth used, protection of information while in motion and also at rest.”

Meincke further says Stealth Net is going to fit into the DOD architecture, the DOD structure and we are going to leverage those things that we are doing down at joint forces command as we implement these new capabilities.

Meincke is also concerned about governance. “Right now we have Strategic Command as the overall umbrella command and we have the Joint Task Force for Global Network Operations -- JTFGNO -- under that,” says Meincke. “I see a maturation of that process into what I would call a Cyber Command that probably at some point will evolve to the four star level.”

Meincke compares this to U.S. Transportation Command today. Transcom today provides the distribution process ownership service to all the combatant commands on a world wide basis; because of the importance of that mission and the need to put it all under one umbrella.

“I would see the same thing in a Cyber Command because of the imperatives of what it takes to operate and protect the network and the information flow in that network. That would require and need a four star dedicated to that mission command and I would see that potentially in the five year down the road time frame,” urges Meincke.