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The Navy has entered the full production phase that will install CANES on all platforms in its inventory objective, which includes ships, submarines and land sites. Navy photo of the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) Carrier Strike Group.

An Open Systems C4I Networks DesignThe Navy’s newly deployed afloat information technology system called CANES is a cyber-secure solution that consolidates key legacy C4I networks by employing flexible open architecture to generate long-term savings and bring operational agility to the warfighter.

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CANES: An Open Systems C4I Networks DesignCANES: An Open Systems C4I Networks Design

CANES, or Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise

Services, is based on a Northrop Grumman design that

leverages the company’s vast expertise in cyber and

embraces open systems for continuous competition to

drive innovation up and cost down.

Northrop Grumman applied its Modular Open Systems

Approach-CompetitiveTM (MOSA-C) for the CANES

design to bring the lifecycle benefits of open-systems

architecture and commercial off-the-shelf components

and software. The MOSA-C process allows for long-

lasting solutions that improve interoperability and lower

total ownership cost.

“By maximizing commonality and using our MOSA-C

to drive down material costs, Northrop Grumman has

delivered dozens of affordable, highly capable shipsets

that enable information dominance to the warfighter,”

says Sam Abbate, vice president and general manager for

the command and control division at Northrop Grumman.

Since winning the contract for a limited-production

run for CANES in early 2012, Northrop Grumman has

delivered 37 shipsets. Some of them are already installed

on Navy ships and actively serving forward deployed

sailors and Marines.

With CANES, the Navy is making sea-based C4I

networks easier to operate, creating a common computing

environment, reducing costs associated with maintaining

legacy systems, and allowing for rapid upgrades to get the

most capable technology to the warfighter while quickly

meeting emerging threats.

“CANES is designed to maximize commonality across

the fleet. Its open architecture allows for rapid deployment

of new and existing apps,” says Catherine Meyn, Northrop

Grumman’s program manager for CANES. “And we

integrated information assurance into the product right

from the beginning.”

Assured CybersecurityWhen the CANES program was initiated years ago, the

world was in the early stages of recognizing the harm

potential adversaries or hackers could inflict in the cyber

CANES units bound for installation aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) are loaded and tested in the SPAWAR Network Integration and Engineering Facility prior to delivery. Photo: U.S. Navy

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CANES: An Open Systems C4I Networks DesignCANES: An Open Systems C4I Networks Design

domain. In the time since, the threat has become palpable, and

countering it has grown into an urgent national security priority.

“The CANES shipsets we are producing today are

information-assured cyber-robust systems,” Meyn says.

Northrop Grumman was among the earliest in the defense

industry to grasp cyber’s importance and leverage it into

the design and development of CANES. Northrop Grumman’s

broad approach accounted for a host of issues, ranging

from the physical protection of the system to system-wide

monitoring, as well as identification and protection against

potential threats, says Meyn.

“We’re applying our 30-plus years of cyber expertise

to ensure customer missions are protected,” Meyn says.

“To defend against an increasingly sophisticated threat,

cybersecurity has got to be part of the plan. Building it in

upfront makes it affordable and allows you to operate in a

trusted environment.”

As the Navy proceeds with CANES, Northrop Grumman will

continue to offer cyber solutions to guard against tomorrow’s

threats, and has already developed new technology,

leveraging expertise from its Advanced Cyber Technology

Center (ACTC), to allow end-users to safely interact with

CANES using portable devices like smartphones and tablets.

The ACTC, which launched last year, harnesses cyber

innovation from across the company to bolster resiliency for

customers worldwide.

The open architecture standards designed into CANES allow

for the introduction of new, emerging technologies like iPhones

and Android devices before they were household items.

“Even back then we were looking beyond a Blackberry,

to think about how this new technology would transition,

and we assumed there would be movement toward other

devices,” Meyn says.

Northrop Grumman’s ACTC developed an advancement

in trusted mobility called TEMPO that the company will

demonstrate to the government. TEMPO complies with access

validation through a Common Access Card (CAC) approach and

would allow sailors to securely use smartphones or tablets

with CANES. TEMPO ensures proper user identity and checks

apps on the devices to ensure they are safe, Meyn says.

“We are using our internal research and development to

identify even more ways that we can improve cyber on CANES

and carry it to the deck plate and beyond,” Meyn says.

Reaching for the CloudThe Navy is planning to use CANES as the backbone

for an expansion to the Tactical Cloud to quickly and cost

effectively access, deploy and store Big Data.

While the Cloud was not on the horizon when CANES was

designed, the Navy is able to take advantage of its open

architecture design to adapt the system for Cloud operations.

“CANES is a tremendous capability,” Meyn says. “When we

started, there was no Cloud. But as with all new technology,

once you get it you find it’s used in ways that you never

imagined when it was being designed.”

CANES would allow sailors to access data on the Cloud

while underway without having to store it all on the ship,

limiting the need for massive amounts of onboard storage

space. End-users could acquire the requisite data and send

it back to the Cloud once the mission is complete. They

could also share new data with others by uploading it to

the Cloud.

“The point of Cloud computing is having the right

information at the right time in the right place,” Meyn says.

“The Cloud allows you to collect and contain enormous

amounts of data and disseminate it to the right location in

the right format.”

CANES is simplifying the IT infrastructure on Navy ships.

CANES is consolidating multiple legacy ship information technology networks. U.S. Navy image.

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CANES: An Open Systems C4I Networks DesignCANES: An Open Systems C4I Networks Design

Open CompetitionThe Navy has entered the full production phase that will

install CANES on all platforms in its inventory objective,

which includes ships, submarines and land sites. The

Northrop Grumman design owned by the Navy will serve as

the basis for full production units that will be awarded in

small numbers at a time to competing companies.

The acquisition strategy is intended to promote continuous

competition to get the right price, a key tenet of the open

architecture business model increasingly critical in an era of

constrained budgets.

Northrop Grumman was quick to harness the potential

of open architecture solutions, and to recognize the value

of sharing data rights with the government, minimizing

sustainment and lifecycle costs while promoting a

collaborative and competitive environment.

“We know that we will always be looking into the future

and innovating,” Meyn says, outlining why Northrop Grumman

was comfortable handing over the data rights in partnership

with the Navy.

“We know that technology is fleeting, and people are

always moving to the next technology,” she adds. “We

can leverage that technology. So can the government. And

together we can come up with something that is better than

the sum of its parts.”

Northrop Grumman’s Modular Open Systems Approach-Competitive (MOSA-C) model allows CANES to minimize lifecycle costs and bring agility to the warfighter. Image: Northrop Grumman

The USS McCampbell (DDG 85) was the first Navy ship to become operational with CANES. Photo: U.S. Navy

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