military information technology afitc 13 7

The Voice of Military Communications and Computing

Combat Information Transport System Combat Information Transport System ✯✯ IT Energy Saving IT Energy Saving Host-Based Security Host-Based Security ✯✯ Information Assurance Technology Assistance Center Information Assurance Technology Assistance Center

SPECIAL SECTION:

AIR FORCE NETCENTS

AIR FORCE NETCENTS

Information Information WarfighterWarfighter

Lt. Gen. Lt. Gen. William T. LordWilliam T. Lord

Chief of Warfighting Chief of Warfighting IntegrationIntegrationChief Information OfficerChief Information OfficerAir ForceAir Force

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C4ISRC4ISRAugust 2009August 2009

Volume 13, Issue 7Volume 13, Issue 7

View FromView Fromthe Hillthe HillRep. Bobby Bright Rep. Bobby Bright (D-Ala.)(D-Ala.)

From the warfi ghter in the fi eld to the data in cyberspace — when it’s critical, it’s QinetiQ North America.

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MILITARY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGYAUGUST 2009

VOLUME 13 • ISSUE 7

FEATURES COVER / Q&A

2525

DEPARTMENTS

2

4

5

19

22

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Editor’s Perspective

Program Notes

People

JTRS Update

Data Bytes

COTSacopia

Calendar, Directory

INDUSTRY INTERVIEW

4444

Lieutenant General William T. LordChief of Warfighting Integration

Chief Information Officer

Air Force

Steven CooperForeScout

66

View From the Hill

Though we have yet to see the digital Pearl Harbor that

some have predicted, cyber-attacks on military and civilian

networks have shown increasing sophistication in the past

decade.

By Rep. Bobby Bright

1616

Conglomerate of IT Capabilities

As part of an effort to fundamentally change the ways in

which it manages and operates networks, the Air Force is

implementing a restructuring of its Combat Information

Transport System.

By Tom Marlowe

3030

Security from End-point to Enterprise

An initiative originally focused on improving the security of

individual computers and other equipment is being transformed

into an enterprise-level campaign to strengthen command and

control over networks throughout the department.

By Harrison Donnelly

4040

State of the IA Art

The Department of Defense’s Information Assurance

Technology Analysis Center is a “super library” of expertise

on IA and defensive information operations.

By Harrison Donnelly

3434

Powering Down IT

Amid the federal push to cut energy consumption, including

of electricity for information technology-related needs,

industry is stepping forward with a host of green IT solutions

designed to reduce both costs and DoD’s carbon footprint.

By Karen E. Thuermer

77

The NETCENTS Record

MIT magazine recently reached out to

companies serving as prime contractors

for the Air Force Network Centric Solutions

(NETCENTS) program.

NETCENTS

The recent opening of a research and technology application

facility near the Army Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth,

Kan., is highlighting the growth of an important new model for

bringing industry, academia and government together to speed delivery

of new capabilities to warfighters through intense collaboration.

Sponsored by General Dynamics C4 Systems, the Leavenworth

Edge Innovation Center is part of the Edge Innovation Network,

which comprises more than 85 members representing a wide range of

industries, colleges and universities worldwide. Its goal is to provide a

collaborative, open environment that enables members from industry,

academia and the government to work together in quickly developing

new technologies to meet requirements identified through customers’ direct field experiences.

Edge Innovation Centers are also located in Scottsdale, Ariz.; Orlando, Fla.; and Oakdale, U.K.

In September, the Vehicle C4ISR Edge Innovation Center is slated to open in Taunton, Mass.

Product and technology developments resulting from collaboration at other Edge facilities

have included the Soldier Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Receiver, which delivers

real-time streaming video directly from multiple unmanned assets into the hands of soldiers

on the ground; the Primordial Route Planning Application, a route planning application that

automatically determines the fastest or most concealed route; and the Boomerang Shooter

Detection and Location System, which enables soldiers to identify and respond to a sniper’s shot

within seconds.

When Edge members find a gap between a user requirement

and members’ products and capabilities, the network issues a

call for innovation (CFI). The most recent CFI, for example, seeks

high-accuracy keyword speech recognition of approximately 20

different keywords, or combination of keywords, received in

broadcasts from commercial and military grade VHF and UHF

radios.

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APPTIS.COM

For over 18 years Apptis has worked side by side with the DoD to make the networks

that s pport o r oint or es r n more e e tive y and e ient y rovidin innovative

net entri en ineerin or voi e video and data servi es to D A the enta on and

s o r team keeps the DoD stron onne ted and se re

APPTIS IS DEFENSE. APPTIS IS SERVICES.

APPTIS IS DEFENSE

Compiled by KMI Media Group staff

DISA, GSA Combine on COMSAT AcquisitionIn a move that will bring major changes to the way the military and other

federal organizations acquire commercial satellite communications resources,

the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and the General Services

Administration (GSA) have agreed to create a common marketplace for such

services.

Under an agreement signed in late July by DISA Director Lieutenant

General Carroll F. Pollett and James A. Williams, commissioner of GSA’s

Federal Acquisition Service, the two agencies will cooperate to create the Future

COMSAT Services Acquisition (FCSA) program. The new program, which is

slated to go into operation in 2011, will have a total value of more than $5

billion over 10 years.

After exploring the possibility of merging acquisitions, DISA and GSA

ultimately sealed the deal to ensure a common marketplace for satisfying

the majority of the federal government’s future commercial satellite

Combined Endeavor (CE) 09, the world’s

largest communication interoperability exercise,

will be held in September featuring several firsts

for the annual event.

CE 09 is a flagship communications exercise

highlighting EUCOM’s Strategy of Active Security.

This year, 40 nations crossing two unified

commands—EUCOM and CENTCOM—and

three continents with more than 1,200 partici-

pants will conduct approximately 1,000 commu-

nication information systems interoperability

tests during a two-week period.

This will mark the first time that three sepa-

rate locations have been used for the multina-

tional communications event. It is also the first

time that a Partnership for Peace (PfP) nation,

Bosnia-Herzegovina, will be used as the main

site. At Banja Luca, there will be approximately

600 personnel participating during the exercise

period. Other exercise sites this year include Suz

Base, Netherlands, and Copenhagen, Denmark.

The interoperability test locations and

participation by NATO and PfP nations are

unique. Combined Endeavor sets conditions for

multinational C4 network success and elimi-

nates “discovery learning” upon deployment

for military and humanitarian operations. The

test documentation gained from these series

of exercises has been utilized in multinational

deployments.

Tests this year will focus on net-centric capa-

bilities, user-defined common operational pictures,

ISAF and NATO Response Force pre-deployment

testing, and cyberdefense. The results of the tests

will be compiled and added to the integrated

interoperability guide that has been maintained

since the first Combined Endeavor. The guide is

used as a tool to assist in the rapid deployment of

coalition networks for NATO and coalition mission

and crisis response.

“This year’s Combined Endeavor is especially

important, exciting and challenging,” said U.S. Air

Force Brigadier General David A. Cotton, director,

command, control, communications and war

fighting integration and chief information officer

(J6/CIO) for HQ U.S. European Command.

“The national planners agreed to try some-

thing new this year and ‘break the mold’ to accom-

plish what has not been attempted in Combined

Endeavor’s 14-year history. In past years, all of the

participating nations and organizations would

deploy their personnel and equipment to a familiar

site in Germany to test the interoperability of their

communications, save one year when the exercise

was in Austria. Last year, the national commu-

nication leaders agreed to conduct deployable

communications operations from three locations,

all of which have their unique logistical and

operational requirements that have to be met in

order for Combined Endeavor 2009 to succeed,”

Cotton explained.

“One of the more obvious challenges is to

successfully plan, coordinate and attain national

clearances to transport all personnel and equip-

ment to these three locations, each in a different

country,” he continued. “Once the personnel

arrive, they must quickly and effectively establish a

stable multinational network to conduct commu-

nications interoperability testing and integration.

In some cases, such as Denmark, they will have

equipment at each of the Combined Endeavor sites

to provide the backbone for satellite connectivity

and the hubs for the coalition network.

“The main operating base will be in Bosnia-

Herzegovina, and the two regional operating sites

will be in Denmark and the Netherlands. Each of

these nations has stepped up to prepare their sites

for hosting over 1,100 communicators and 400

support personnel for Combined Endeavor 2009.

All participating nations will have representatives

working in the Combined Joint Communications

Coordination Center in Bosnia-Herzegovina, to

coordinate and oversee the exercise,” Cotton said.

The most innovative and significant

approaches being tried this year involve commu-

nications standards, including the Tactical

Communications Standard (TACOMS), which is

a commercial interface standard that integrates

communications systems, allowing them to pass

data to one another. The Netherlands has taken

the lead in developing TACOMS as a NATO standard

and will lead several Combined Endeavor nations

through testing and integration of their TACOMS-

compliant systems. TACOMS has been submitted to

NATO and is undergoing the approval process to

become a NATO standard.

Flagship Exercise Breaks New Ground

Soldiers from participating nations installed a communications antenna during last year’s Combined Endeavor. [Photo courtesy of U.S. European Command]

www.MIT-kmi.com4 | MIT 13.7

Air Force Brigadier

General Gregory L.

Brundidge has been

assigned as director,

command, control,

communications and

war fighting integra-

tion, Headquarters U.S.

European Command.

He has been serving as

deputy chief of staff,

communications and

information systems,

Multi-National Force-

Iraq.

Navy Captain Gretchen

S. Herbert, who has

been selected for promo-

tion to rear admiral

(lower half), will be

assigned as director, Navy

Networks, N6N, Office

of the Chief of Naval

Operations.

Air Force Brigadier

General John E. Hyten

has been assigned as

director, Space and Cyber

Operations, Deputy Chief

of Staff, Operations,

Plans and Requirements,

Headquarters U.S. Air

Force.

Navy Captain Diane

E. H. Webber, who has

been selected for promo-

tion to rear admiral

(lower half), will be

assigned as director

for command control

systems, J6, Headquarters

North American

Aerospace Defense

Command/director,

architectures and inte-

gration, J6, U.S. Northern

Command.

Laura Larson has

joined Citrix Government

Systems as director of

sales and business devel-

opment on the company’s

federal systems integra-

tors team.

Skot Butler has been

named director of

strategic initiatives of

Intelsat General, where

he will initially lead a

team working to win the

Pentagon’s $8 billion

Future Commercial

Satellite Communications

Architecture contract,

to be awarded by the

Defense Information

Service Agency in 2010.

The contract will replace

the decade-old DSTS-G

contract vehicle now

used by the military to

lease commercial satellite

capacity and services.

Ericsson Federal Inc. has

announced a number

of new executive hires

to serve its expanding

government customer

base, including Bob

Dunn, senior vice

president, business

development, sales

and marketing; Dave

Baciocco, vice president,

business development,

defense and intelligence;

and John Klopacz, vice

president, sales, DoD/

commercial SATCOM

providers.

Laura Larson

Skot Butler

Brig. Gen. Gregory L. Brundidge

peopleCompiled by KMI Media Group staff

communication requirements. DISA and GSA are committed to President

Obama’s agenda for cooperation among federal organizations.

“Why manage separate contract vehicles that offer essentially the same

services when we can combine forces?” said Tony Montemarano, DISA’s

component acquisition executive.

In unveiling the program in early August at a meeting with industry and a

teleconference with reporters, agency officials predicted that the new program

would lead to cost savings and a leveling out of government spending for

commercial SATCOM, which has grown rapidly in recent years. The savings

will come from elimination of redundant administrative costs both by the two

agencies, which will no longer have to manage separate programs, as well as

by companies, which will reduce overhead involved in bidding on multiple

contracts.

In addition, the federal government can expect to save through combined

buying power, which will reduce bandwidth expenses by an estimated 10

percent to 15 percent through economies of scale.

FSCA will replace three existing programs: DISA’s Defense Information

Systems Network Satellite Transmission Services-Global (DSTS-G) and Inmarsat

contracts, and GSA’s SATCOM-2 contract. The DISA programs acquire about $350

million a year, while GSA currently manages $47 million in annual acquisitions.

The DSTS-G program, which expires in 2011, involves three initially small

businesses—Artel, Spacelink (now DRS Technologies) and Arrowhead (now

CapRock Communications—acting as prime contractors combining offer-

ings from other satellite companies. The program has attracted both strong

defenders, who say it fosters an integrated approach to delivering services to

warfighters, and critics, who argue that it unnecessarily limits market access.

(See Military Information Technology, June 2009, page 9.)

FSCA will have three components: dedicated transponder capacity;

subscription services, including terminals; and end-to-end solutions, including

bandwidth, access, terminals and network management. Vendors will compete

for master contracts in any service area and, if selected, then compete for

specific task orders.

Two indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contact vehicles will be estab-

lished for end-to-end services, with one of the vehicles reserved for small

businesses.

“I see nothing but better things ahead for all of our customers,” said Bruce

T. Bennett, DISA’s director of satellite communications, teleport and services.

Correction:In the article, “X-band Advantage,” in the July 2009 issue of MIT, the name of the Spanish company that co-owns XTAR

appeared incorrectly. It is HISDESAT.

www.MIT-kmi.com MIT 13.7 | 5

Nobody likes surprises, especially when they affect your country’s national security posture. Getting caught by surprise, as we were in 1941 at Pearl Harbor and again in 1957 by Sputnik, has serious consequences. Americans are accustomed to having the luxury of distance or time—the Pacific Ocean or the prolonged race to space in these two instances—as shock absorbers. Even though we were initially caught by surprise in each case, American ingenuity and grit carried us to victory on both fronts and in turn improved our national security position.

We cannot count on the same literal and figurative “oceans” in the future because our reaction time has been reduced by the pace of information technology. Though we have yet to see the “digital Pearl Harbor” that some have predicted, cyber-attacks on military and civilian networks have shown increasing sophistication in the past decade. What began as uncoordinated threats from individuals or small groups has morphed into a much more dangerous group of hacker clubs and cyber-aggressors that are tolerated, and in some cases aided, by unfriendly governments.

For example, public reports suggest that North Korea has sponsored a cyberwarfare unit, while hackers in Russia have claimed credit for attacks that have impacted Amer-ican interests. Recent coordinated attacks disrupted the U.S. State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and even The Washington Post, but bounced off base-ment servers at the White House.

But what happens when our enemies can make the Ground Based Missile Defense system think it’s a laundromat? Now we are talking about a serious, technological “Pearl Harbor” surprise. These recent attacks remind us that the attackers on that fateful Sunday morning in 1941 were actually picked up by what was then new technology in the form of Army SCR 270 radar, but misclas-sified as six American B-17s scheduled to arrive at the islands at the same time as the Japanese attackers.

The government has begun to recognize and respond to these threats. Recently, the House Armed Services Committee held a

subcommittee hearing on “Cyberspace as a Warfighting Domain.” My colleagues and I heard from a spectrum of military IT experts, including the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The agency was formed in the immediate aftermath of Sput-nik, and to this day its mission remains “to prevent technological surprise.”

At the hearing, Bob Leheny, DARPA’s acting director, stated that “cybersecurity threats will continue to increase in scope and sophistication. Rapid experimentation of new defensive capabilities is needed to stay ahead of cyberthreat advances.” He went on to describe how the National Cyber Range will allow “realistic, quantifiable tests and assessments of cyberscenarios and defensive technologies.”

One of DARPA’s main goals is to develop what Leheny described as “robust, secure, self-forming networks ... with the promise of turning information superiority into combat power ... to dramatically speed up our OODA [observe-orient-decide-act] cycle.”

Leheny sees network-centric operations that can “form, manage, defend and heal themselves ... at enormously high speeds ... which mean that people may no longer be central to establishing, managing or adminis-tering them.” While to some this may sound like science fiction, we should remember that the moon landing and the Internet also seemed implausible not too long ago. The concern, of course, is that our enemies are working to meet the same goals.

The good news is that we are moving for-ward. President Obama is establishing a new cybersecurity office within the White House, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has tasked General Kevin P. Chilton, commander of USSTRATCOM, to deliver a plan to estab-lish a “Cyber Command” by September.

There is much happening on the tactical level, too. At Maxwell Air Force Base, which I am fortunate to represent, the Air University has just held a “Future Operators” sympo-sium to help determine ways to develop cross-domain integration for all warriors, including cyberwarriors. The 754th Electronic Systems Group at Maxwell AFB Gunter Annex is host-

ing the 22nd annual Air Force Information Technology Conference (AFITC) this month in Montgomery, Ala. AFITC is the premier information technology conference in the Air Force. This year’s theme is particularly pre-scient: “Air Force Information Technology: the Warfighter’s Edge in Battlespace.”

How does this help us lead turn our cyber-adversaries and help pre-empt a digital Pearl Harbor? It was the cooperation, planning and execution of the plans by American military and industry that earned us victory in World War II and put Americans on the moon a dozen years after Sputnik. The nature of cyberwarfare means that conflict dwell times have shortened, the OODA loop has tight-ened, and that combat in the cyberbattles pace now is measured not by miles or kilome-ters but by nanoseconds. Recognition of these realities will keep us alert, agile and flexible in cyberdefense, and secure in the future. But we must keep our eye on the target.

As the ancient Chinese military strate-gist Sun Tzu correctly observed, “In conflict, direct confrontation will lead to engagement, and surprise will lead to victory. Those who are skilled in producing surprises will win.” We would be well-served, especially in the cyber-age, to remember those words. ✯

Rep. Bobby Bright (D-Ala.) is a member of the House Armed Services Committee. The 754th Electronic Systems Group is head-quartered at Maxwell AFB, Gunter Annex, in Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District, which he represents.

Pre-empting a Digital Pearl HarborBY REP. BOBBY BRIGHT


PRIME CONTRACTORS REVIEW ACHIEVEMENTS OF KEY AIR FORCE IT CONTRACT.

(Editor’s Note: MIT magazine recently reached out to the eight companies serving as prime contractors for the Air Force Network Centric Solutions (NETCENTS) program. Following are the statements of those that chose to respond.)


THE CENTECH GROUPBETTER PRICING AND BETTER INFORMATION FLOW

BY ELLEN HILL

The NETCENTS contract has been very successful for THE CENTECH GROUP. The company has had significant success during its five-year history with NET-CENTS, providing over $400 million in information tech-nology and communications services and products through June 2009.

The customer base has expanded from a presence in four states to 42 states and 12 international locations, includ-ing infrastructure support for the Iraqi Air Base Information Technology Infrastructure Program adminis-tered by Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass. Other NETCENTS customers include the Air Force, Army, Navy, Air Force Reserves, Air Force Air National Guard and Federal Aviation Agency.

But CENTECH’s success has not been achieved alone. A key aspect in winning over

1,300 awards has been its relationship with a core team of large and small business service providers and equipment manufacturers. As a team, it has provided services and products for projects as diverse as site survey and installation of a radome in Croughton, U.K., to software life cycle support at Maxwell AFB-Gunter Annex, Montgomery, Ala., located just a couple of miles from the company’s NET-CENTS Program Management Office.

Another innovative solu-tion example is a site survey and installation of a “new-to-the-Air Force” Internet Protocol Television for all 12 Headquarters Air Mobility Command bases through-out the United States. The innovative solution has more capabilities at a lower cost than the solutions previously used by many Air Force orga-nizations. The company also provides the content services. At one AMC base, President

Bush’s speech to the troops was broadcast live on computers throughout the base and to all those who could not attend once the local hangar was filled to capacity.

The company’s NETCENTS mantra has been, “First we must win, then we must satisfy,” and the entire team is focused on

customer satisfaction. To support customers, CENTECH developed a Web portal application to immediately post customer requirements for review by our team. This has allowed it to be agile and responsive to a challenging decen-tralized ordering system. Contracting officers around the world have requirements ranging from simple task order requests to “model contract” requests. The time for response is short, so quick dissemination of information and team composition is critical.

Although NETCENTS 2 will be structured differently, CENTECH knows how to build a team and respond in this type environment. Company executives are confident that they have an excellent opportunity to continue serv-ing customers under the new contract vehicle.

CENTECH’s senior vice president for Department of Defense operations, James Tin-dell, also noted that the NETCENTS vehicle has been about getting the most from teaming partners. As a result, CENTECH has made sure that every partner has an opportunity to get involved with winning or registering potential NETCENTS work. The CENTECH NETCENTS team does this by giving all partners access to their portal and pushing solicitations out to partners as soon as they are available.

CENTECH has also developed and imple-mented a mutual purpose and vision for the team through the program, and ensures that they have committed leadership that takes an

THE CENTECH NETCENTS Team… Today and Tomorrow

Priming today’s NETCENTS tasks and looking forward to the future of NETCENTS, CENTECH provides:

For more information, contact:NETCENTS Program Manager, Ellen Hill400 Interstate Park Drive, Suite 401Montgomery, AL 36109877.334.9669 (877.E.Fix.Now)

netcents@centechgroup.comwww.centech-netcents2.comwww.centechgroup.com

TRUST QUAILTY SERVICE VALUE

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GENERAL DYNAMICS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

VITAL ROLE IN ENTERPRISEWIDE TRANSFORMATION MANAGEMENT

BY DAN AYER

NETCENTS I has helped to usher enterprisewide transformation into the Air Force and facilitate the service’s infor-mation management initiatives. Delivery orders under the contract have assisted the Air Force in achieving its goal of true net-centricity and a more secure cyber-posture.

NETCENTS I possesses a rigorous source selection process, a long-term IDIQ contract (which allowed for “lessons learned to be applied”), an enforcement of standards and policies, and a continu-ous competitive process for each delivery order. The contract was intended to sup-port the Air Force’s transformation to Air Force Network Operations (AFNETOPS), which consolidates operations under one command. Through the contract, the Air Force has been able to draw expertise from key “vetted” contractors to support the entire life cycle of the Air Force IT mission.

The NETCENTS prime contractors, which include General Dynamics Infor-mation Technology, felt like true industry partners, learning and adapting alongside the Air Force as the mission has evolved.

NETCENTS I has helped the Air Force accomplish several key initiatives. For example, through delivery orders issued by the Combat Information Transport System (CITS) Program Office, 12 bases,

six of which General Dynamics IT directly supported, have received secure, broad-band fiber-optic wired networks, under the Information Transport System (ITS) program, the foundation of net-centric operations.

In addition, General Dynamics IT has delivered robust Air Force wireless infrastructure with high availability and multi-tiered administration and manage-ment, which complies with all Air Force, Department of Defense, federal and Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations security policies, to 29 bases, with 25 additional bases planned.

The Air Force also has used the contract to upgrade its fielded telecom switches, incorporating unified capabili-ties, such as Voice over IP (VoIP), to provide the warfighter with reliable voice communications within the existing tele-phone system and to support future net-based voice capabilities.

General Dynamics IT has also played a key role in evolving the Air Force Voice Switching System (VSS) from circuit to IP-based telephony by engineering, furnishing and installing VoIP solutions at Keesler, Wright-Patterson and Vander-berg Air Force bases.

NETCENTS I assisted in the maturity of the Air Force’s enterprise network management and network defense (NM/ND) capabilities. Delivery orders issued under the contract vehicle have been essential in helping the Air Force migrate toward its AFNETOPS transformational concept, a standards-based, secure, cost-effective alternative to some of the legacy systems it has replaced. General Dynam-ics IT-led NETCENTS initiatives have established the Air Force intranet, con-solidated core services at the enterprise level and automated NM/ND tools:

AFNET Increment I (NOIA Block • 30) product acquisition and stand-up of the 16 Air Force intranet gateways;Integrated Network Operations • and Security Centers (I-NOSC) design and implementation, which migrated management of each base network boundary from its local Network Control Center to the I-NOSCs at Peterson AFB and Langley AFB, enabling true enterprise network management; andAFNOC Network Operations Divi-• sion, providing operational sup-port to the Air Force enterprise network.

NM/ND solutions provided by other NETCENTS prime contractors include automated, minimally managed enter-prise-level system security process for establishing IT policy, scanning for vul-nerabilities, reporting compliance and status via the Vulnerability Lifecycle Management System, and enterprise-level network, application and device moni-toring via NetCop, NetIQ and SMARTS enterprise licensing agreements.

In addition to being a key enabler for deploying net-centric solutions systems, NETCENTS I is also the vehicle under which sustainment of these mission-crit-ical Air Force enterprise infostructure systems and assets have been accom-plished. General Dynamics IT’s sustain-ment efforts include:

Field assistance service with sus-• tainment responsibilities for all Air Force combat support stan-dard systems;

interest and invests in the team’s staff in order to build trust and commitment.

“Our company’s brand identity is just as important as the products and services we provide,” said Tindell. “Using the NETCENTS contract, CENTECH has continued to build on a solid brand identity, and the effort we put

into winning task orders has paid off in the form of loyal customers.”

In summary, while competitive pricing and customer service are major goals, CEN-TECH’s experience has demonstrated that NETCENTS provides the ability to standardize IT systems that meet net-centric standards.

The end result is not only better pricing, but better information flow in an accurate and secure way across the Air Force—and, lest we forget, for the warfighters.

Ellen Hill is NETCENTS team program manager for THE CENTECH GROUP.


HARRIS IT SERVICES

PATHFINDER FOR NETWORK-CENTRIC COMMUNICATIONS

BY JOHN HELLER

NETCENTS continues to be a very successful vehicle for Harris IT Services, according to John Heller, vice president and general manager, Department of Defense programs. “We’ve captured and performed on over 600 services and solutions task orders, which we manage from our highly responsive NETCENTS program office in Montgomery, Ala. In fact, Harris IT Services has been awarded more total task orders than any of the other seven NETCENTS primes, and we rank third in terms of cumulative sales,” he said.

Harris serves Air Force, Army and Navy customers via NETCENTS at locations across the U.S. as well as in Iraq, Afghani-stan, Japan, Guam, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Korea. The company’s NETCENTS engagements span the life cycle, from IT transformation through operations and maintenance and informa-tion assurance.

For example, under a $42.9 million IDIQ task order, the Harris IT Services team

provides independent test and evaluation and IT security services for the Electronics Systems Center (ESC) 754th Electronic Systems Group (ELSG) at Maxwell-Gunter AFB. The ESC ELSG has been convert-ing its business applications—including software for managing critical personnel, logistics, medical and civil engineering information systems—to Web-based appli-cations.

According to John Weimer, Harris’ NETCENTS program director, the Harris team ensures that system security require-ments of those Web-based applications

meet DoD regulations and mission requirements.

“In addition to scanning for security vulnerabilities and monitoring network penetration activities, our team performs source code analysis to identify vulner-ability within code execution as well as working side by side with developers to secure the applications at the highest of DoD and industry standards,” said Weimer.

In addition to services and solutions, Harris IT Services is by far the leading NETCENTS product vendor in terms of dollars and number of orders. When including products, Harris has deliv-ered on more than 2,700 tasks.

When Harris was awarded the contract, Heller thought it was logical to divide the company’s NETCENTS services/solutions and products teams into two groups. Now, it’s likely that NETCENTS 2 will also sepa-rate services/solutions and products into different contracts.

“I attribute our products success to several factors. First, our products group collaborates closely and frequently with our program management office (PMO) on each request for proposal (RFP) and request for quote (RFQ) to determine the best means of maximizing customer value. Secondly, we are extremely responsive and have built strong relationships with many of the largest product purchasing organi-zations. And, lastly, we’re on time with 98 percent of our product deliveries and can deliver anywhere in the world in less than 30 days,” Heller continued.

Harris IT Services partners with more than 150 subcontractors on NETCENTS, and more than 75 percent of them are small businesses.

“Our PMO excels at assembling, struc-turing, adjusting and managing teams to ensure we effectively meet customers’ needs. Our partners offer exceedingly rel-evant past performance and competitive rates, have proven processes and certifica-tions, and cover all small business catego-ries,” Heller said.

Heller views NETCENTS as a highly effective vehicle for quickly providing stan-dardized and interoperable products, ser-vices and solutions to warfighters.

“We’ve seen 2,400 RFPs for solutions and service in four and a half years, along with 15,000 product RFQs. In addition, a growing number of DoD organizations rely on NETCENTS as a primary vehicle. That depth and breadth indicate that ven-dors are meeting customers’ mission needs within the cost and time constraints,” he commented.

Furthermore, NETCENTS has led the way in terms of incorporating increasingly

John Heller

[email protected]

CITS hardware/software support, • which supports and sustains all fielded NM/ND systems;KZ engineering support, which • acts as a bridge for all newly fielded CITS tools and capabili-ties; andVSS sustainment, which provides • help desk support and emergency

repair and replacement in sup-port of the Air Force telecommu-nications network.

These accomplishments have been critical in helping the Air Force trans-form its network operations. The initia-tives have benefited from NETCENTS’ strong source-selection process and the

contractors’ increased ability to support the program after understanding the mission needs.

Dan Ayer is NETCENTS program man-ager for General Dynamics Information Technology. He can be contacted at [email protected].


eneral Dynamics Information Technology is helping

the U.S. Air Force transform their IT enterprise and better

manage information by providing:

General Dynamics Information Technology provides

programs:

www.gdit.com

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Enabling Air Force Enterprise IT Transformation

LOCKHEED MARTIN

AN EXTREMELY EFFICIENT CONTRACT VEHICLE

BY JOHN SLOTA

The NETCENTS program was intended to provide a flexible contracting vehicle to obtain net-centric technologies, network-ing equipment and services, and voice, video and data communica-tions hardware and soft-ware. Lockheed Martin was selected to share in task orders under NETCENTS in 2004.

Since that time, the NETCENTS contract vehi-cle has proved to be a val-ued and vital component of delivery organizations. The broad range of contract users across the Air Force and other Department of Defense agencies allows Lockheed Martin to continue to provide new capabilities to a wider customer base.

Task orders that Lockheed Martin has received under NETCENTS have greatly varied. These tasks have ranged from enterprise service work for the Air Force, many telephony modernizations as the services are preparing for Voice over Internet Protocol, upgrades to medical treatment facilities and base infrastruc-

ture, and a significant amount of enter-prise engineering.

For example, through NETCENTS, the company was selected to operate and maintain the message routing infrastruc-ture for the Pentagon’s command messag-ing systems in support of the Pentagon Telecommunications Center, an organiza-tion of the Army Information Technology Agency. The Pentagon Telecommunica-tions Center’s mission is critical, provid-ing Defense Messaging System services

to DoD, and any disruption of service to the decision-makers in the Pentagon has the potential to impact mis-sion operations worldwide. In addition to providing messaging services at the Unclassified, Secret and Top Secret levels, the Lockheed Martin team also provided virus and spam protection as well as directory, security and configuration manage-ment support.

Also under NETCENTS, Lockheed Martin was selected to upgrade the Air Force flying unit command and con-trol capability, formerly under the The-ater Battle Management Control System (TBMCS) contract. Lockheed Martin was tasked to provide users at more than 46 fixed and expeditionary bases with an improved suite of tools at the wing and squadron level. Resident around the globe, the TBMCS unit command and

control component allows staffs at air-bases to coordinate air order taskings with the Air Operations Center and create a flying schedule.

By interfacing with a number of exter-nal systems, it provides wing and base commanders with decision-quality infor-mation in near real-time, such as the sta-tus of their installation’s vital capabilities and the tools to conduct command and control activities on their installation. The effort included design, development, test, certification, installation, integration and sustainment.

Another key aspect of NETCENTS is its emphasis on small business. As a large supporter of small business; more than 50 percent of Lockheed Martin’s contracted effort on NETCENTS has been performed by small businesses. When establishing a team, Lockheed Martin determines the specific industry leaders and small busi-nesses that will help provide the customer with a best-value solution. This is where subcontracting comes into play—with a focus on small business.

NETCENTS recognizes innovations from small businesses, which can range from IT hardware and software product fulfillment to on-site critical application and IT support requirements. NETCENTS has proved to be an efficient vehicle to quickly field a wide range of capabilities to a diverse customer set.

John Slota is director of C2 Solutions for Lockheed Martin’s IS&GS-Defense.

John Slota

[email protected]

stringent cybersecurity requirements. “NETCENTS standards recognize the net-work as a weapons system. It’s a pathfinder in terms of network-centric communica-tions for military and national security. I believe we’ll see more trendsetting with NETCENTS 2,” Heller continued.

Heller attributes much of Harris IT Services’ NETCENTS success to the stan-dardization the contract requires. “Because of the volume of NETCENTS business we’ve done, Harris knows how to help all the various DoD entities across the globe comply with policy. We can quickly deliver

services, solutions and products that meet dynamic needs and evolving standards,” he said.

Indeed, because of the nature of NET-CENTS, customers have faster access to more interoperable and secure solutions. “With many ex-military and National Guard members on our staff—along with more than 30 years serving the Air Force—Harris fully appreciates the value NET-CENTS delivers to customers and to us,” Weimer added.

Heller and Weimer agree that Har-ris offers extensive experience relevant to

NETCENTS 2 customers, including deliv-ering expert network operations that bet-ter enable mission performance, rapidly responding to the needs of customers across the globe, and helping consolidate legacy contracts to achieve dramatic cost savings.

“We look forward to building upon our successes with NETCENTS 2,” Heller concluded.

John Heller is vice president, general manager Department of Defense programs at Harris IT.


NCIDELIVERING ON AFNETOPS TRANSFORMATIONAL GOALSBY NORRIS CONNELLY

The NETCENTS contract provides the Air Force, Department of Defense, and other federal agencies a broad array of integrated solutions, COTS products, engineering ser-vices, and life cycle management support. NETCENTS plays a key role in significantly enhancing the Air Force and the entire DoD’s capability in the era of net-centric warfare and operations by providing a “standards-based” vehicle for provisioning the network and net-centric services.

NETCENTS has been one of the Air Force’s primary delivery mechanisms for operational and architectural initiatives to achieve both improved operational effectiveness (improved security and availability), as well as increased efficiency (reduced personnel requirements and cost of operations). In particular, the key AFNET operations concepts to consolidate network and security management at major commands and then regional centers have required that Air Force IT infrastructure architectures and technical solutions imple-mented under the NETCENTS contract be done consistently at every Air Force location.

NETCENTS is an integral part of an enter-prise strategy for delivering transmission and net-enabled services to the Air Force. There is less variability when it comes to messaging protocols, security and boundary protection issues, and data storage/management under NETCENTS.

NETCENTS is one of the largest, most diverse multiple-award IDIQ contracts in existence today. Its breadth of scope, efficient ordering mechanisms, and mission-oriented capabilities make it one of the pre-eminent product and service contracts in the fed-eral government. As such, NETCENTS is an important element of NCI’s corporate strategy. It enables us to build a solid plat-form for growth while delivering value to

our customers, stockholders and employees. NETCENTS provides us an advantage as we seek to expand the level of services we provide to our customers.

We aggressively pursue task orders under NETCENTS to add important new custom-ers and expand our service offerings. NCI offers a broad array of services, products and integrated solutions through NETCENTS to help our customers meet their critical mis-sions and objectives. NCI is extending our core capabilities provided under NETCENTS in line with key market drivers and investing in a robust set of business solutions and offer-ings, including IT consolidation/moderniza-tion; geospatial search and visualization; information operations/warfare; information assurance and cybersecurity; program man-agement, acquisition and life cycle support; sustainment engineering and obsolescence management; medical transformation/health IT; and full-spectrum training.

Over the past five years, NCI has been trusted by numerous major commands, program offices and combatant commands, including Air Education and Training Com-mand, Air Force Materiel Command, Air Force Space Command, Air Mobility Com-mand (AMC), Combat Information Transport System, Air National Guard, NORAD/NORTH-COM and USSTRATCOM.

There are a number of key programs that demonstrate the breadth and depth of the NETCENTS contract and our ability to deliver mission-crit-ical services and products to our customers. For example, NCI provides the Air Force Research Laboratory Rome Research Site complete IT sup-port for the information and finance directorates located in Rome, N.Y., including help desk, CSA, FSA, infrastructure support, telephony and information assur-ance. In addition, NCI supports AFWAY II, a robust, scalable, flexible enterprise resource planning (ERP) system using the Oracle eBusiness suite to meet future strategic enterprisewide purchasing needs for all com-modities and services. NCI provides effective solutions and workarounds and produces

significant lessons learned that have and will continue to benefit the entire Air Force ERP community.

At AMC, NCI provides Secure Voice over IP (SVoIP), integrated secure wireless, and MAJ-COM C2 network support. NCI also provides USSTRATCOM/JIOWC/GCCS fully integrated Google enterprise search and geospatial visu-alization, supporting near-real-time informa-tion operations warfare planning, assessment and analysis.

Looking forward, NETCENTS-2 should continue to play an integral role in the Air Force’s achieving its transformational initia-tives. The vision for NETCENTS-2 includes a family of full and open and set-aside procure-ments covering net-centric products, tele-phony products and solutions, NetOps and infrastructure solutions, application services, enterprise integration and service manage-ment, and IT professional support and engi-neering services.

NETCENTS-2 will support the full IT life cycle, including legacy operational and sus-tainment activities, re-engineering of legacy capabilities into target architectures and envi-ronments, and future service-oriented capa-bilities. The NETCENTS-2 model should allow for increased innovation and the ability to more rapidly provision and field capabilities.

Achieving the Air Force’s transformational goals in an incremental and evolutionary manner requires that it have a set of contractors under a common set of standards and architecture within a single contract vehicle, ensuring consistency across the actions of the multiple contractors. NCI believes NETCENTS-2 will play an instrumental role in achieving these objectives. NCI has been a trusted part-ner of the Air Force and NET-

CENTS, and we look forward to continuing our trusted relationship with the Air Force and delivering mission-critical services and solutions to customers worldwide.

Norris Connelly is senior vice president of Air Force programs for NCI Information Systems, Inc.

Norris Connelly

[email protected]


NORTHROP GRUMMAN

FOUNDATION FOR C4I SUPPORT TO THE WARFIGHTER

BY ED MOORE

The bottom-line goal of the NETCENTS contract is to provide standardized network infrastructure required to get the right information to the warfighter at the right time to ensure mission success.

For five years, NETCENTS has pro-vided the Air Force, Department of Defense and other federal agencies with a primary source for network-centric infrastructure equipment and systems, to include the requisite system engineering, installation, integration, deployment, operational sup-port, and life cycle maintenance. A key objective is to migrate toward a family of DoD standardized networking solutions, which are based on commercial standards but are also interoperable with Air Force, joint and DoD standardized networking technical architectures, including support of the Global Information Grid (GIG).

While there were some initial growing pains, the overall NETCENTS process to post opportunities, accept proposals, evalu-ate responses, make awards and properly execute task orders has developed into a streamlined and efficient methodology for both products and services. Most products are now delivered within 30 days of an award—frequently sooner—and most ser-vices are initiated immediately following an award. The NETCENTS contract has pro-vided its customers with the benefit of com-petitive pricing with an overall reduction in the amount of labor and time involved to award an individual contract.

Northrop Grumman has had numer-ous successes on the NETCENTS contract and currently leads all other primes with more than $1 billion in NETCENTS awards to date, out of a total of $5 billion that has been awarded on the entire NETCENTS contract. Northrop Grumman has been most successful on the services side of the contract. Approximately 93 percent of our

awarded value has been as a result of service awards.

Key Northrop Grumman service task order awards include: Vulnerability Lifecycle Management System (VLMS); Defense Knowledge Online; Defense Travel Services;

Air Force Equipment Management System; Commander Navy Installations Command IT and telecom support; and Host-Based Security System (HBSS).

Each of these task orders was achieved by the proper utilization of both large and small business partners, as well as multiple business sectors within Northrop Grum-man. Getting the right combination of play-ers for each task order was and is critical to winning and the proper execution of each task order. This was an early focus of our program management office, and continues to be very successful.

Northrop Grumman believes that network-centric communications plays a critical role for both military and national security. The current world situation (both in terms of threat and funding) requires that all services operate jointly to meet emergent threats in a timely and cost-effective manner. This requires not only joint interoperability between the services but also with other DoD and intelligence agencies.

The only real way to achieve the required commonality and interoperability is best expressed by the Combat Infor-mation Transport System motto: “single architecture, with standardized products.” The days of stovepiped solutions with dif-fering standards across multiple commands need to finally come to an end. However, as our dependency on common centralized data repositories grows, the need to ensure that data is adequately protected, to ensure availability at the critical moment, becomes even more paramount. The use of contracts such as NETCENTS and the follow-on NET-CENTS-2 provide the means to achieve that end.

Northrop Grumman maintains the “pulse” of our NETCENTS customers. We have taken the lead in our customer’s evo-lution of critical cyberdefense initiatives by providing more than $75 million worth of

security services, including the installa-tion and support of the Air Force network defense initiatives of VLMS and HBSS.

LMS is an automated and centralized network vulnerability management of clas-sified and unclassified networks, and deploys the Joint Task Force-Global Network Opera-tions mandated tools that provide the Air Force with tools and processes for real-time vulnerability scanning, remediation, quar-antine, reporting and information sharing. Additionally, we’ve provided HBSS, used to provide local computer defense of critical systems and devices on the GIG.

HBSS provides DoD with a significant capability to defend all computers across the department’s unclassified networks and enables system administrators improved situational awareness in the fight against cyber-attacks. These tools ensure vital net-work capabilities are available at all times to warfighters.

Furthermore, Northrop Grumman’s work under NETCENTS has contributed to DoD’s transformation of existing operational capabilities. In order to realize a seamless joint network of information and engage-ment grids that link sensors, command and control cells, and tactical units to support future war fighting capabilities through the GIG, the company has partnered on critical joint initiatives, including Defense Knowl-edge Online and Defense Travel Service, to provide an enterprise capability across DoD to our service men and women.

The HQ 754th ELSG has been an excep-tionally good partner to work with on NETCENTS. They essentially serve as an additional partner for each of the prime contractors and greatly facilitate the use of the NETCENTS contract across DoD. Northrop Grumman found this relationship to be important enough to add a dedicated deputy program manager to work with them on a daily basis in Montgomery, Ala. We look forward to continuing our strong partnership for the remainder of NET-CENTS and into NETCENTS-2.

Ed Moore is NETCENTS program manager for Northrop Grumman Infor-mation Systems. He can be contacted at [email protected].


TELOS

IMPROVED NETWORKING AND IT SECURITY BY CHARISSE STOKES

Since the Air Force awarded the origi-nal NETCENTS contract in September 2004, the contract vehicle has provided a competitive edge for the federal govern-ment by reducing the time to market for critical networking and communications equipment and services. The five-year, $9 billion Air Force IDIQ contract enables government agencies to purchase mission-critical hardware and software, network-centric voice, video and data products and services, and telephony solutions from a group of prime contractors.

“NETCENTS has trans-formed the government pro-curement process by offering a single source for secure, high-performance, cost-com-petitive solutions for network-centric applications to support and enable government and Department of Defense mis-sions, functions and opera-tions,” said Charisse Stokes, senior director, Southeast operations and NETCENTS program manager for Telos, which serves as a small busi-ness prime on the contract.

Prior to NETCENTS, no standard con-tract existed in which the government could order integrated network solutions. The Air Force, for example, used a Navy contract vehicle for its IT and telecom requirements, and in some cases, it used piecemeal software and hardware for its networks.

“This practice was not in the best interest of national security; it did not help protect the nation’s IT and commu-nications resources,” said Stokes. “Fur-thermore, this practice did not support

mission-critical operations with innova-tive technology. NETCENTS changed this and enables the government to put in place the best networking technology and the latest IT security solutions.”

An example of a valuable develop-ment to come from NETCENTS is the establishment of the Air Force Application Software Assurance Center of Excellence (ASACoE), located at Gunter Annex, Max-well Air Force Base, Ala. ASACoE ensures that application security best practices are incorporated across the Air Force and enables the Air Force to identify critical vulnerabilities and secure its applications. With the additional security provided by ASACoE, the Air Force is better able to defend against application-level attacks, protecting sensitive information that in turn helps protect the nation.

Telos was awarded an initial task order, which has a ceiling of $75 million, to establish the ASACoE in September 2007. To date, the center has conducted

260 software assurance assessments and identi-fied numerous vulnera-bilities. The assessments were conducted jointly with Air Force program developers in an effort to make the assessment process part of the soft-ware development life cycle.

In addition to improving application software assurance for customers within the

Air Force, last year, ASACoE performed code analysis and training for a variety of other government agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Judge Advocate General, reducing the risk and cost associated with application vulnerabilities.

This year, Telos received a NETCENTS task order modification of $6.7 million to further support ASACoE. The task order includes training classes and services to provide software licenses. The modifica-tion brings the total value of the ASACoE task order to more than $16 million.

“Via NETCENTS, Telos is supporting new technologies that can be employed to help the government enhance its com-munications capabilities and protect the nation from IT security threats,” Stokes added. “Some of these new technologies that the government can access under NETCENTS had not been previously avail-able to government agencies.”

Telos posted more than $230 mil-lion in new sales from the Air Force’s NETCENTS program in fiscal year 2008, which is more than any of the contract’s eight primes. Among the many NET-CENTS wins for Telos are a $13 million task order for the Defense Message Sys-tem at the Pentagon Telecommunications Center, and a $6.3 million order for Air Force Defense Message System program management.

NETCENTS has promoted network-centric communications, which is criti-cal to ensure the speed, accuracy and quality of decision-making information that is available to federal and civilian agencies, according to Telos. The firm is leading the way to provide the enterprise-class network infrastructure backbone for secure voice and data communica-tions for customers in support of their operations.

Telos’ offerings under NETCENTS are voice, video and data communica-tions; secure wireless networking; infor-mation assurance; application software assurance; vulnerability and penetration testing; enterprise messaging; secure credentialing; telephony including VoIP; COTS products; system solutions and engineering services; inside/outside plant engineering systems hardware and soft-ware; systems management, operations and maintenance support; configura-tion management; training; centralized logistics and inventory management sup-port; worldwide depot support, spares and supplies; outsourcing and services support; and engineering/IT/specialty experts. ✯

Charisse Stokes is senior director, Southeast, and NETCENTS program manager for Telos.

Charisse Stokes

[email protected]


As part of an effort to fundamentally change the ways in which it manages and operates networks, the Air Force is imple-menting a restructuring of its Combat Infor-mation Transport System (CITS).

The CITS, which incorporates various projects to provide upgraded and secure Air Force network systems, began as a single major defense acquisition program operating with the federal government as a systems integrator.

But as of 2009, CITS has been restructured into several major programs (acquisition category I) and multiple lesser programs (acquisition cat-egory III) to become “a con-glomerate of capabilities being delivered through various pro-grams,” according to Colonel Russ Fellers, CITS program manager.

The CITS program office may award those contracts as task orders through the Air Force Network-Centric Solutions (NETCENTS) consolidated purchasing vehicle, but it also may explore other options due to the anticipated timing of the awards, Fellers explained.

“Right now, NETCENTS is the contract that we have been directed to use for acquisi-tion of CITS products and capabilities. The current contract is about to run out of its ordering period,” Fellers stated.

“There is a follow-on contract, NET-CENTS 2, won’t be in place until next sum-mer, so we have to look at multiple vehicles to procure the capabilities we are trying to put

out into the field in the next year,” he added.The various initiatives are ambitious and

critical to maintaining Air Force cyberfunc-tionality and security, Fellers noted. CITS will continue its Information Transport System (ITS) program as an acquisition category (ACAT) 1 program to redesign the entire network infrastructure at every Air Force base. The ITS program has been going on for a number of years and will continue for

another eight years at pres-ent, Fellers said.

A separate ACAT I pro-gram will install secure wire-less capabilities across all Air Force bases as well, while a third ACAT I contract will take the ITS network infra-structure upgrades to the Air National Guard bases.

The CITS program office also supports contracts for another set of ACAT 1 pro-grams under the banner of

the Air Force Network (AFNET). The AFNET Increment 1 program has been working for several years toward the goal of creating gateways for the Air Force intranet. Those 16 gateways are designed to protect the Air Force from external threats to its networks from over the Internet. That effort goes into operational test this fall with full operational capability projected for the middle of 2010.

AFNET Increment 2 also will begin next year, Fellers revealed. The program, another ACAT 1, centers on the re-architecture of all base boundaries to protect networks from internal threats from base to base.

The CITS program office will kick off yet another large acquisition program next year to rebuild network control centers at all Air Force bases.

“We will continue to embrace server vir-tualization to reduce our logistics footprint, our life cycle costs, and our energy consump-tion across the Air Force for our networks,” Fellers said.

A host of smaller programs also will bring additional benefits to networks. For exam-ple, the CITS program office will start up a program called the Cyber Control System within the next few months. It will be a com-mand and control system used for situational awareness of the AFNET.

“The Cyber Control System is the first step toward giving the operator the ability to have real-time knowledge of the operational state of the network,” Fellers said.

SECURITY MENTALITY

The restructuring of the CITS program office and its portfolio is a significant effort requiring the office to double in size over the next year to adequately deliver the capabilities it has been tasked to implement.

“There has been a mentality in the past that our networks need to be fast, responsive, convenient and as open as possible to get our job done,” Fellers commented. “The Air Force is in the process of changing that mentality. The first priority now is that our networks need to be secure. That is trumping the avail-ability and ease of use of the network. We can’t afford to have a compromise. Much of our operational activity now takes place on

AIR FORCE RESTRUCTURES COMBAT INFORMATION TRANSPORT SYSTEM TO IMPROVE NETWORKS AND INCREASE SECURITY.

BY TOM MARLOWE

MIT CORRESPONDENT

[email protected]

Col. Russ Fellers


the network, and we can’t afford to have that taken away from us.”

The flurry of activity now occurring is a result of the CITS program office clearing an audit by the inspector general of the Depart-ment of Defense as well as a program support review from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Fellers said. Once CITS resources were freed from those obligations, the office began to turn its attention to fielding new cybercapabilities.

Recent events have underscored the need for the Air Force to rapidly deploy new ways of deploying and securing its networks, Fellers remarked. A sustained cyber-attack against government networks in June, suspected to have originated from North Korea, reminded network managers that DoD is a prominent target for malicious actors.

“So we have to be very secure—more secure than the public sector. There is a lot of activity going on now and over the next several years to improve the security of our networks, to improve the security of our network devices, and to improve the security of the desktops, laptops and mobile devices that our military members use to carry out their missions. This amounts to a defense-in-depth activity to try to protect ourselves from cyberthreats,” Fellers commented.

There has been a growing focus within DoD on cybersecurity, including such departmentwide initiatives as the recently announced establishment of U.S. Cyber Com-mand. But Fellers said the timing of the CITS initiatives to upgrade Air Force networks has sprung from a predictable and necessary technology refresh.

“For the purposes of CITS, we are not in the business of developing the network infra-structure, the network management or net-work defense tools. We are purchasing COTS products. We are following the industry lead and purchasing best of breed to defend our networks,” Fellers stated.

The Air Force, meanwhile, is establishing the 24th Air Force to oversee its cyber-activity and moving its cyber-operations to Air Force Space Command.

These moves are part of a significant change to how the Air Force previously con-ducted its cyberbusiness, Fellers emphasized. Previously, the Air Force established net-works and maintained them at every base, and the major commands were responsible for managing their networks.

“Now we are moving toward an Air Force enterprise concept for managing and defend-ing our networks. All of the tools that we are

putting in place now from the CITS program office are focused on enabling the Air Force to manage the Air Force intranet at the enterprise level. That is a departure from the way our networks were managed previously,” Fellers said.

INDUSTRY RELIANCE

Fellers highlighted the importance of following the lead of industry in standing up new network connectivity and security. Given the reliance on industry for this expertise and the host of projects coming from the CITS program office, it was no surprise that an industry day held this spring drew atten-dance from more than 100 contractors, large and small, interested in providing support to CITS.

Among the companies represented at the industry day was General Dynamics Informa-tion Technology, which has worked with the CITS program office in the past.

“A large number of our delivery orders have directly contributed to the Air Force making great strides toward achieving true net-centricity and a more secure cyberposture,” said Paul Besson, staff vice president of business development for Air Force IT solutions at General Dynamics IT.

While supporting the ITS program, General Dynamics IT delivered turnkey survey, design, installation, training, integrated system testing and warranty support for the backbone IT infra-structure at more than 75 sites worldwide—including Vandenberg, Petersen, F.E. Warren, Eglin, Edwards, Beale and Ellsworth Air Force bases, Besson said.

General Dynamics IT also provided the Air Force with robust, standardized, secure wire-less infrastructure with multi-tiered adminis-tration and management for 29 bases, with 25 more in process, as the prime contractor for the Second Generation Wireless LAN delivery order for CITS.

“We fielded and sustained Air Force tele-communication switches across the Air Force for many years, providing reliable voice com-munication within the existing telephone system, and supporting future net-based voice capabilities,” Besson recounted. “Gen-eral Dynamics IT has also played a key role in evolving the Air Force’s voice switching sys-tems from circuit- to IP-based telephony by

engineering, furnishing and installing Voice over IP solutions at Keesler, Wright-Patterson and Vandenberg Air Force bases.”

Among its major contributions to CITS, General Dynamics IT has supported the move from decentralized management of networks at the Air Force major commands to the new Air Force Network Operations (AFNETOPS) construct, Besson continued. Under AFNET Increment 1, the company assisted with prod-uct acquisition and standing up the 16 Air Force intranet gateways. It also designed and implemented integrated network operations and security and provided operational sup-port for the Air Force enterprise network at the Air Force Network Operations Center Network Operations Division.

It’s a critical time for the CITS program office as the Air Force makes key strategic decisions, Besson noted. “The CITS program is being restructured to provide the most effective means to quickly tackle such issues using standardized, proven processes and sources to acquire, deploy and sustain the

ground-based data and voice elements of the cyberspace domain,” he stated.

That restructuring comes with challenges. Bes-son anticipated that open-ing multiple, complex ACAT programs concurrently will involve oversight challenges for both the Air Force and for industry.

“However, it’s those changes that will also allow for the more efficient, rapid

and flexible acquisition agility,” he said. “Fos-tering a continued environment of partner-ship with industry will serve as key enablers to meeting those challenges.”

Looking ahead to the future of CITS, Bes-son emphasized the need for all involved to bring innovative and forward-thinking solu-tions to meet mission requirements. “The restructured program may require indus-try to be more proactive in the future by aggressively assisting in the development of technology roadmaps, consolidation initia-tives, innovative lab environments, flexible sustainment options and assured compliance with mandated security standards and proce-dures,” he said. ✯

Paul Besson

Contact Editor Harrison Donnelly at [email protected].

For more information related to this subject, search our archives at www.MIT-kmi.com.


As the Defense Science Board has observed, a transformed acquisition system is essential to military transformation for a number of reasons. “In today’s environment, a responsive, rapid and agile acquisition system is a necessity—the current model is not up to the task,” according to a 2005 board report.

Many distinguished panels and individuals over the decades have aimed at reforming the defense acquisition process, and observers have already identified most of the problems and have proposed solutions for them. There appears to be remarkable agreement as to the problems that need to be addressed but, so far, not enough ability or agility to address them, according to a 2008 assessment of defense acquisition performance.

The JTRS program faces many of the same problems that trip up other acquisition programs, especially the problems that

arise from being a joint program in a service-centric environ-ment. The Department of Defense has attempted to deal with JTRS problems in unique ways. They include:

Technology Immaturity. AMF JTRS competitively awarded development contracts to two industry teams that each took their competing designs to preliminary design review well before Milestone B. Industry also built prototypes. The govern-ment then required each team’s proposals for the follow-on system development and demonstration work to show that the technology readiness level (TRL) for critical technologies were at TRL 6—defined as “system/subsystem model or prototype dem-onstration in a relevant environment”—or better. This allowed the under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics (USD (AT&L)) to certify to Congress that AMF JTRS

JTRS Advances Acquisition ReformPROGRAM SHOWS PROGRESS IN TACKLING ISSUES FROM TECHNOLOGICAL IMMATURITY TO CREEPING AND GOLD-PLATED REQUIREMENTS.

Editor’s Note: This is another in a regular series of updates on the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS), as provided by the program’s Joint Program Executive Office (JPEO).


was one of the first programs to comply with the provisions of 10 U.S.C. 2366b, which represented an attempt by Congress to raise the bar for Milestone B. The new Weapon Systems Acqui-sition Reform Act of 2009 further enhances the importance of technology maturity and competitive prototyping.

Lethargic Acquisition Process. In 2007, USD (AT&L) approved a streamlined process for JTRS to decrease the time and cost to staff documents, thus facilitating faster decisions without sacrificing OSD or service insight or program rigor. The under secretary also delegated final approval of some documents to the JPEO JTRS to facilitate the JPEO’s ability to apply mid-course corrections and more quickly institutionalize lessons learned in acquisition and systems engineering, as needed. After a year in use, an OSD joint analysis team endorsed this process by recommending that JTRS’ “current streamlined procedures be retained.”

Slow Technology Insertion to Meet Urgent Operational Requirements. JTRS produces software defined radios, and much of its capability resides in software. After JTRS delivers a baseline software package, it plans to then develop, inte-grate, and test enhancements to the baseline software every two to three years via its software in service support (SwISS) process. As recommended by the January 2006 Defense Acquisi-tion Performance Assessment report and other analyses, these enhancements can be heavily influenced by input from users, such as combatant commanders, via the JTRS Tactical Require-ments Group, which is part of the SwISS process. Emergency code revisions could be fielded in two to six months. JTRS has an opportunity to take another step to build a powerful new model—an annual operating plan (to supplement the acquisi-tion program baseline) fed by level RDT&E funding to respond to an annual list of COCOM-generated enhancements approved outside the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS).

Creeping Requirements. From program initiation in 2002 through 2005, JTRS had more than 3,000 requirements. Several were extremely challenging and even beyond available techni-cal capability. Others were too vague, and requirements never stabilized. JTRS was not executable, and the success of the 2006 restructuring hinged on deferring many requirements to future JTRS increments and clarifying other requirements. Today, JPEO JTRS and JTRS program managers remain vigilant on both informal (that is, outside the JCIDS process) and formal requirements creep. Several JTRS contracts tie industry’s award fee to its ability to resist disruptive tasking and any growth in contract scope not formally approved by the government procur-ing contracting officer and program manager. Additionally, the DoDI 5000.02 policy to emphasize key performance parameters, while pushing other requirements to trade space, will embolden JTRS PMs to request requirements relief. A JTRS Configuration Steering Board can facilitate this relief.

Gold-Plated Requirements. JTRS cost estimators are play-ing a key role in developing the capabilities document for JTRS Increment II; after cost estimators placed a price tag on each iteration of the draft capabilities development document (CDD), another group of “requirements” suddenly disappeared due to their high price. For the draft CDD, this drove the require-ments community to realize how difficult/expensive some requirements would be to meet. The result was a distilled list

of cheaper, easier-to-develop capabilities that are based on more mature technologies—that is, the 75 percent solution advocated by the secretary of defense in Senate testimony earlier this year. JTRS programs will continue striving for realistic cost estimates on draft requirements, making it easier to predict the cost, schedule and performance outcomes of each round of develop-ment, resulting in more stable budgets. These detailed cost esti-mates will also help the government recognize overly aggressive bidding in industry proposals.

Competition Ends When Development Starts. The radio industry has been a closed, proprietary model: Industry typi-cally retained most software and hardware intellectual property rights, requiring the services to continuously invest with an individual vendor for each capability upgrade. Different radio vendors diluted interoperability and DoD’s ability to leverage economies of scale. Through the JTRS enterprise business model, JTRS increases software reuse and portability because JTRS vendors provide government purpose rights for their historically proprietary software, and standards ensure that JTRS software is consistently applied across several hardware platforms. This increases competition for software upgrades and maintenance, avoids costs, improves and increases interopera-bility across multiple radio platforms, and allows easier technol-ogy insertion and product refresh. In addition, JTRS qualifies at least two production sources for radio sets and competes buys in aggregated lots. (For example, individual components combined their purchases of handheld tactical radios, and in less than 18 months avoided $425 million in costs while buying more than 110,000 JTRS single channel handheld radios.) JTRS encourages radio vendors that do not currently have development contracts to join the competition for future production orders by showing, via government testing, that their radios meet JTRS require-ments. Competition has been and continues to be a key tenet of the JTRS enterprise business model.

Joint Acquisition Programs Are Typically Not Well Man-aged. Shortfalls of the existing joint acquisition process typically include:

the joint requirements generation process is too slow, • and there is often a lack of consensus on requirements;joint programs often take longer and cost more than • single-service acquisitions;single-component programs often have more senior-• leader advocacy than do joint programs; andOSD oversight of joint programs is strained due to other • commitments and lack of staffing.

JTRS was initially established as a direct report to USD (AT&L), which provided joint oversight and guidance to the program and to the services. This approach addressed several of these shortfalls, but with the JPEO JTRS returning to an SAE acquisition structure, many of these will need to again be resolved, unless a new set of rules of engagement can be agreed upon initially. An approach for JTRS and other joint programs to have an advocate of a true joint nature would be to create a joint acquisition executive (JAE), as a peer to current component acquisition executives, reporting to USD (AT&L) and that man-ages only joint programs. The JAE would be the joint technical authority for those joint programs.


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Secure Wireless Bridge Approved for Army Use

The ES520 Secure Wireless Bridge from Fortress Technologies has been added

to the Army Information Assurance Approved Products List (Army IA-APL), estab-

lishing it as an approved technology for use across the Army. The first fully rugged,

tactical wireless solution suitable for outdoor use on the Army IA-APL, Fortress

successfully secured product certification and IA compliance through Network

Enterprise Technology Command. In order to be placed on the Army IA-APL, Fortress’

Secure Wireless Bridge had to meet the following criteria: Federal Information

Processing Standard 140-2 Level 2 validation; under National Information Assurance

Partnership Common Criteria Level EAL4+ evaluation; Internet Protocol version 6

compliance; and Army Information Systems Engineering Command Technology

Integration Center evaluation and recommendation. Fortress’ Secure Wireless

Bridges are all-in-one network access

devices that combine the features of a

wireless access point, bridge, Ethernet

switch and FIPS 140-2 validated AES

encryption in a small, rugged, weather-

ized form factor.

Chris Whalen:

[email protected]

Handheld Radio Order Supports Air Force Comms Changes

Harris has been awarded $44 million in orders to provide Joint

Tactical Radio System ( JTRS)-approved Falcon III AN/PRC-152(C) hand-

held radios and accessories to the Air Force. The radios will support

the changing communication needs of the entire Air Force enterprise,

including security forces, special operations, combat engineers and Air

Mobility Command. The Air Force is acquiring AN/PRC-152(C) radios

along with vehicle adapter amplifiers, base stations, and repeater systems

for use as core elements of a modern adaptive communications system.

The system offers mounted and dismounted forces, secure and reliable

extended range communications links among team members and back

to the mission command post or tactical operations centers. The AN/

PRC-152(C) offers users a wide range of capabilities such as SINCGARS

interoperability, APCO P25, UHF ground-to-ground line-of-sight commu-

nications, HAVEQUICK II, close-air support and programmable encryption.

The AN/PRC-152(C) also serves as the handheld-based transceiver of the

Falcon III AN/VRC-110, a high-performance, multiband vehicular system

that serves as an improved alternative to legacy SINCGARS radios. The

radio has been certified as fully compliant with version 2.2 of the JTRS

Software Communications Architecture and certified Type-1 compliant by

the National Security Agency.

CITS Order Upgrades Infrastructure at

Hickam AFBNCI has been awarded a task order worth an estimated $3.6 million

to support the Air Force’s Combat Information Transport System

(CITS) Program Office. The primary place of performance will be at

Hickam AFB, Hawaii, with performance expected to begin in August.

This competitively awarded task order is new work for NCI and was

awarded under the Network-Centric Solutions (NETCENTS) contract

vehicle. Under this task order, NCI will provide the CITS program with

an integrated, high-bandwidth, information transport capability to

support the warfighter’s current and future mission requirements at

Hickam AFB and the local Hawaii Air National Guard sites. The Air

Force is transforming its networks from MAJCOM-centered islands to

secure, unified, consolidated enterprise-centric networks as part of

the Air Force’s portion of the Global Information Grid. The CITS work

will help the Air Force meet its goals by upgrading and establishing

the communications infrastructure for a centralized C2 capability and

core IT services.

Norris Connelly: [email protected]

Marines Seek Common Robotic Controller

The Marine Corps has awarded QinetiQ North America a

two-year, $2 million contract to develop a universal wearable

controller to operate a wide variety of unmanned systems, including

unmanned ground vehicles, unmanned air vehicles and unattended

ground sensors. The Marine Corps uses many types of unmanned

systems in combat today, but none of these platforms use the same

controller. Marines operating these platforms must contend with

unique controllers for each type of system made by various vendors.

The Common Robotic Controller resulting from this contract will

enable Marines operating unmanned systems to use a single-type

controller for varied platforms regardless of manufacturer. The

introduction of this common controller will simplify user training,

reduce operator work load and combat load weight, simplify main-

tenance, and lessen overall system procurement and repair costs.

The Common Robotic Controller will not only be lightweight,

but will be designed to co-exist with the other items of equipment

that Marines must wear and carry. The project will include devel-

opment of a wearable, integrated set of components including a

robust, miniature computer system able to support all the neces-

sary platform software requirements, a reliable power source, a

user-friendly touch-sensitive display, a gaming style input device,

and much more.


Compiled by KMI Media Group staff

Contract Provides Turn-Key C4I

Systems Worldwide

Apptis has been awarded the Project Manager Defense

Communications and Army Transmissions Systems (PM

DCATS) Command Center Upgrade (CCU) Special Project

Office (SPO) contract to provide overall management,

engineering, integration and acquisition of turn-key C4I

systems worldwide. The total contract is valued at more

than $130 million, with one base year and one option year.

The PM DCATS CCU SPO organization manages a suite of

more than 100 projects that supports joint warfighters,

major commands and combatant commanders worldwide.

Projects include strategic satellite communications and

wideband control systems, long-haul terrestrial microwave

and fiber-optic communications systems, tech control facili-

ties, combat service support communications systems, crit-

ical power infrastructure, command center upgrades, base

radios and combat vehicle intercom systems. Apptis will

support these systems with program management, engi-

neering services, integration of enterprise infrastructure,

telecommunications engineering, IT system engineering

and implementation, operation and maintenance, training

support, and integrated logistics support among other

services. The Apptis team includes subcontract partners

ManTech, SGIS, X-EETO and CSC.

Steve Conway: [email protected]

System Supports Information Sharing Between Security Levels

ITT has been awarded a re-compete contract for the continued development,

deployment and sustainment of the Information Support Server Environment

(ISSE) system. ISSE is a high assurance communications infrastructure compo-

nent, providing secure information sharing and protection between networks

operating at different security levels. ITT has received two delivery orders valued

at $9.8 million under the five-year indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract.

The contract has a ceiling value of $49.9 million and was awarded through the

Air Force Research Lab based in Rome, N.Y. Under ISSE, data and communica-

tions exchanged between networks operating at different security levels undergo

extremely high levels of scrutiny, ensuring that there are no compromises in the

information confidentiality or integrity. ITT will provide systems and security

engineering technical expertise for the ISSE system, from ongoing requirement

definition and analysis to software research and development, integration, quality

control, certification, installation and accreditation. The ISSE product is a critical

component of secure data communications throughout the U.S. and its allies, and

is integral to operations at intelligence community and Department of Defense

sites worldwide.

Army Seeks Mounted Soldier Cordless Communication

Thales Communications has received an award from Army Research, Development

and Engineering Command for development and delivery of mounted soldier cordless

communication systems. Today’s warfighters require the capability to dismount from

their vehicle while maintaining secure communications over the vehicle intercom

system and the vehicle’s combat net radio.

Current intercoms necessitate the warfighter

being tethered to the vehicle by a cable. This

results in lost connectivity when transitioning

from mounted to dismounted operations.

Thales has leveraged the flexibility of the

battle-proven AN/PRC-148 JTRS Enhanced

Multiband Inter/Intra Team Radio to provide

a Type 1 secure wireless connection between

the dismounted soldier and their VIS, seam-

lessly extending the reach of the VIS for full

crew station functionality. Thales’s Mounted

Soldier Cordless Communication System

enables warfighters to move freely inside and

outside the vehicle without losing critical

communications. The core of the Thales

system is the AN/PRC-148, the smallest,

lightest and most power-efficient multiband,

tactical, handheld radio in use today covering

the 30–512 MHz frequency range.

Identification Capabilities Aid Federal Security

Compliance

Verizon Business is now offering Symark PowerSeries

security access-management software and applications, inte-

grating those security capabilities for UNIX/Linux servers and

systems into the company’s already robust portfolio of security

solutions for government customers. These new services, avail-

able under the General Services Administration’s Connections

contract, will help federal agencies comply with access control

and accountability requirements associated with new stricter

Federal Information Security Management Act regulations.

The addition of the Symark offering complements and extends

Verizon Business’ identification and authentication and iden-

tity access management portfolio by enabling organizations

to better control access to critical IT systems and information

across diverse IT environments using UNIX and Linux data

centers and operating systems.


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Lieutenant General William T. Lord is the chief of war fighting integration and chief information officer, Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, where he leads five directorates and two field operating agencies consisting of more than 1,000 military, civilian and contractor personnel supporting a port-folio valued at $17 billion. He integrates Air Force war fighting and mission support capabilities by networking space, air and terrestrial assets. Additionally, he shapes doctrine, strategy, and policy for all communications and information activi-ties while driving standards and governance, innovation, and architectures for information systems and personnel.

A 1977 graduate of the Air Force Academy, Lord holds a bachelor’s degree in biological and life sciences, and master’s degrees in business administration and national resource strategy. He held various duties with tours in Europe, U.S. Cen-tral Command and the White House, and has commanded at the detachment, squadron, group, wing, major command and joint levels. Prior to his current position, Lord was commander, Air Force Cyberspace Command (Provisional), Barksdale Air Force Base, La.

Lord was interviewed by MIT Editor Harrison Donnelly.

Q: First can you please explain the structure of your organiza-tion and what its primary functions are?

A: The Air Force Chief of Staff set up the Office of Warfighting Integration and Chief Information Officer [SAF/XC] in 2005. The office consolidated all Air Force information technology organizations under a single umbrella by combining the former deputy chief of staff war fighting integration [AF/XI], Air Force chief information officer [AF-CIO], and Directorate of Commu-nications [AF/ILC]. The consolidation brought the strengths of each previous organization together. In addition to those roles, SAF/XC also has responsibility for AF/A6 [communications and information] on the Air Staff. As the chief of war fighting integration, I am responsible for developing, implementing and enforcing Air Force strategy and policy that enables delivery of integrated war fighting combat support capabilities to the joint warfighter.

The Clinger-Cohen Act of 1986, which mandated the posi-tion of CIO for all executive branch agencies in the federal government, created SAF/XC’s chief information officer role. In this role I am responsible for the development of Air Force IT

policies, guidance, architectures and standards. The CIO also oversees the Air Force IT budget and ensures all Air Force IT systems are certified and accredited in accordance with law and DoD guidelines.

As AF/A6 I provide the chief of staff with independent advice on communications matters across the Air Force and most importantly, I am responsible for communication and informa-tion [C&I] force development.

Q: As you assume your new position, what do you see as the most pressing issues facing the Air Force in terms of informa-tion technology and war fighting integration?

A: Resources. We are in an environment where competition for resources—money and personnel—are very dynamic. As we look at how to support today’s fight and modernize, we look for the highest value technology to leverage our combat power. That will mean we’ll watch the trade space between various sys-tems, business and combat, to ensure highest bang for buck.

Q: Based on your recent experience as head of Air Force Cyber Command (P), how would you evaluate the cyberthreat facing the Air Force, and what will your first steps be to address it in your new job?

Lieutenant General William T. Lord

Chief of Warfighting Integration

Chief Information Officer

Air Force


Information WarfighterSeeking Highest Value Technology to Leverage Combat Power

Q&AQ&A

A: I’d evaluate the threat as both growing in magnitude and sophistication. Better defenses and treatment of Air Force net-works as critical assets are the first orders of business, and we have terrific leadership support to do both.

Q: What role will SAF/XC play in terms of organization, policy-making and coordination with the new 24th Air Force?

A: The stand-up of 24th Air Force, under AF Space Command [AFSPC] is truly historic and provides the Air Force with a cyber-focused organization with the responsibility to defend our vital networks as well as conduct offensive operations. SAF/XC will work with our fellow Air Staff elements to ensure that Space Com-mand receives the support it needs to get the job done.

Q: What do you see as the future of Air Force space-based com-munications in light of the cancellation of the Transformational Satellite program? What other current or planned programs can meet the needs it would have filled?

A: We’re evolving our broader communications architecture to leverage the complementary aspects of the terrestrial, aerial and space-based layers of the network. As we move forward it’s increas-ingly important that we treat each layer as crucial, interconnected and mutually supporting pieces of the larger war fighting net-work.

When Secretary of Defense Gates announced the termina-tion of the Transformational Satellite [TSAT] program in April, he also committed to two additional Advanced Extremely High Frequency [AEHF] satellites. These satellites, along with the four already funded, will provide global, highly secure, surviv-able communications for the war fighter and the national com-mand authorities. It’s important to note that we’ve relied on our MILSTAR satellite program to provide many of these capabilities for the last 15 years. However, today’s highly data-centric war fighting environment requires increased bandwidth over our SATCOM links and much greater total satellite capacity.

If you look at the Wideband Global SATCOM [WGS] and AEHF systems, I think you’ll see that the Air Force is putting a lot of emphasis on fielding highly capable SATCOM capabilities over the next decade. For instance, WGS introduces enhanced capa-bilities, and operations in the Ka-band, which will pump data to our troops in the field at up to 137 Mbps. The AEHF system will provide protected data rates more than 500 percent greater than what we have now with today’s MILSTAR system. These capabili-ties will ensure our warfighters receive critical information such as air and space tasking orders, real-time ISR, and logistics infor-mation on a timelier basis. Higher data rates, compression tech-niques, and improved waveforms enable transmitting a range of data types we couldn’t previously share in real-time.

We also have a great deal of advanced technology that was developed by the TSAT program. General Kehler was on target when he told Congress in May that the Air Force should look for ways to harvest some of that work for use in other programs—possibly in AEHF or WGS. While those decisions haven’t yet been made, we have a lot of very smart people looking at options. In any case, I’m confident the knowledge gained from that program will still be very useful to us.

I also want to emphasize our continued partnership with the commercial satellite communications industry. Today, about 80 percent of the bandwidth provided by SATCOM is provided by commercial providers. Even if we somewhat reduce that number in the future, I think it’s safe to say that commercial capabilities will continue to be an important element of our space-based communications architecture long into the future.

Q: How would you evaluate the significance and progress of the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node [BACN] program?

A: In my opinion, BACN is a true Air Force success story in combat support to today’s fight and joint force warriors. BACN’s genesis began when our Global Cyberspace Integration Center tactical data link team began looking across a number of aircraft weapons systems to integrate tactical data link equipment in the Air Force and other services. Our first BACN flight demonstration was in 2006, when we integrated our proof of concept payload into a NASA aircraft with some initial success. Afterwards, we continued to demonstrate the BACN payload and flew it again in Joint Expe-ditionary Force Experiment 2008 with even better results.

Since BACN was first deployed in the fall of 2008, it has made great strides in joint and coalition interoperability. Data col-lected from missions has shown significant reduction in the “kill chain” timeline while BACN is operating. Because of the success BACN has achieved, a joint urgent operational need was issued calling for added BACN capability. We are currently scheduled to


have sufficient BACN assets to provide round-the-clock capability in the AOR by the middle of fiscal year 2011.

Q: What are some of your other priorities in the area of airborne networking technology and communications interoperability?

A: In order to provide joint commanders with the information they need, XC needs to champion the rapid insertion of cutting-edge IT through rapid prototyping and experimentation to improve our networks, both airborne, space and terrestrial. We are currently working on an Air Force vision for airborne networking that will provide direction for warfighter networking. This will be followed up with a flight plan that will provide the guidelines for building this important network.

We are also a major contributor to the study of advanced tactical data links, and have had a major role in writing the joint aerial layer initial capabilities document, which will provide the benchmark for all of the services for networking in the aerial layer, including net-enabled weapons and ISR. Ultimately this network will allow the services to move from our current stove-piped tactical data link-based network to the next-generation IP-based network that allows the services to leverage off of each other’s capabilities.

Q: There have been substantial successes in recent years in shortening the “kill chain” and “sensor to shooter” loop. What

technologies can take the Air Force to the next level in this vital area?

A: The “kill chain” has been shortened substantially in recent years with streamlined processes and advancements in support tools throughout the “sensor to shooter” loop. For example, the MISREP Analysis Tool shortened the ingestion and processing time of mission reports from more than 24 hours to a few min-utes. Going forward, Air Force developers and experimenters need to continue working closely with the hands-on warfighters to rapidly prototype and address their most pressing C2 priorities.

Building a robust aerial network of networks will allow tacti-cal users to have the right information at the right time in the right format. This aerial network will be essential in the event of a denied-space environment. A robust airborne network will allow for greater access to information in a secure manner, with anti-jam capability. We are leveraging our experience with the BACN and other programs to assist in building this network.

Q: How do you see the new DCGS Integration Backbone [DIB] contributing to Air Force war fighting integration?

A: The DIB provides data exposure for the entire intelligence community, not just the Air Force. This enables us to move toward the more responsive TPPU [task, post, process, use] model instead of the older TPED [task, process, exploit, disseminate]


model where appropriate. Increased machine-to-machine inter-faces will further reduce the kill chain cycle and enhance our ability to engage time-sensitive targets with our joint partners. The DIB moves us away from stovepiped legacy systems to net-enabled capabilities that have already proved themselves in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Q: What changes would you like to see in the way the Air Force operates its financial, medical and other business information systems?

A: We need to work toward more integration of the financial, medical and even personnel systems so our military members can continue to focus on the mission. What we have works well, but by leveraging the latest technologies there is considerable room for improvement.

Integration of the financial and personnel systems can allow our Air Force members to conduct even more “self-help” finan-cial actions. For example, airmen are limited on some allotment actions they are able to conduct online, so instead they have to actually walk down to the base accounting and finance office. If we can integrate these systems, we can keep our airmen on the job and lower support manpower requirements at the same time.

Similarly, further integration of the medical and personnel systems will allow us to be more efficient in our approach to combat readiness from a medical perspective. Right now, across

the Air Force, our numbered air forces and wings track the sta-tus of the medical readiness of their troops such as the status of their vaccinations, health assessments, lab work and dental status. This effort requires a lot of human intervention to track and notify individuals, as well as report to leadership on a regu-lar basis. Using new tools and technology, we can take the man out of the loop in several places and allow the systems to auto-matically generate e-mail alerts to the airman as well as reports in whatever format leadership wants. If we get this right, our airmen will resolve any number of medical requirements long before they become due, while at the same time, we will spend a lot fewer man-hours tracking and reporting.

Q: What role does your organization play in Air Force IT pro-curement? Where would you like to see the NETCENTS pro-gram go in the future?

A: Our role in SAF/XC is to define the Air Force policy on the standards, architecture and management practices of the IT equipment and software we need to make the Air Force mission more efficient and effective. We now do that in conjunction with the chief management officer. The acquisition community focuses on the actual process of procuring that equipment and

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software, and we are highly dependent upon and teamed with their expertise.

As the Air Force CIO, our role in IT procurement is to ensure we have the right requirements identified to purchase the right IT that fits with our Air Force enterprise and meets our strategic Air Force objectives. Working hand-in-hand with SAF/AQ, we are working to ensure the proper governance is in place for IT procurement vehicles such as NETCENTS.

Regarding NETCENTS, we are continuing to grow this ser-vice and provide the products and services we need to fulfill our IT strategic goals. My vision for NETCENTS and its follow-on NETCENTS 2 is to provide the Air Force community at large with competitive, cost-effective vehicles that meet local base contract-ing goals while at the same time adhering to our Air Force enter-prise strategic objectives. We need to be more responsive to the needs of our users, which means acquiring and delivering capa-bility in a short amount of time. Users can’t wait 18 months for a system or product to be delivered—they need it now. Our vision for NETCENTS is to provide that rapid acquisition capability.

Q: What messages would you most emphasize to industry in its partnerships with the Air Force?

A: The first message is that we, the U.S. Air Force, are depen-dent on a strong partnership. The solutions to our problems are provided by a vibrant U.S. industry, both large and small. As the resourcing becomes more difficult, big leverage items are the ones we are looking for. The return on investment will be closely scrutinized for high percentage returns. We need products that can be quickly deployed to enhance current ops and are net-centric from day one.

The second message is a big “thank you” for the help our industry partners give us every day!

The third message is that we depend on our industry part-ners to help us with the innovation that they are so wonderful at fostering—and bringing that innovation to us.

The final message is to invite them to offer us their advice on what we can do to make our relationship better for both. The environment is at the “perfect storm” point to change processes and rules that are obstructive to both of us.

Q: What can the Air Force do to strengthen training and devel-opment of its IT professionals?

A: The increased focus on the cyberdomain is forcing us to take a hard look at how we structure our entire C&I career field [both civilian and military], and we will be making some major decisions in the near future. We must offer education and tai-lored training to develop our IT professionals throughout their careers, and ensure that training is producing the professionals needed to support our COCOMs. We must also develop a deliber-ate funding strategy based on training requirements. The fielding of IT systems is always accompanied by a corresponding training requirement, which if unfunded, jeopardizes the very effective-ness of the capability the new technology delivers.

Some current initiatives include transforming our basic skills training courses. Graduates of these courses will receive the necessary fundamentals and be primed for follow-on spe-cialized training. Organizationally, this new training paradigm

requires the establishment of formal training units that focus on teaching the skills needed to deliver the capability to establish, operate, defend, exploit, and attack in, through, and from the cyberdomain. One of the challenges we have to confront is that the same highly specialized skill sets needed within the Air Force are also highly desired within industry. Since we are in fierce competition for these skills, we must maintain a focus on person-nel retention measures.

At the same time, we also need to recognize that the lead-ing edge in this arena can often be found outside the Air Force within other services, industry, and/or academia. Expanding our existing partnerships can only benefit our people. Identifying and partnering with IT centers of excellence enables knowledge transfer and better prepares our professionals to meet and con-quer the unique challenges presented by the cyberdomain.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?

A: This is an exciting time to be in our Air Force and in the IT/cyberbusiness. I am honored to be placed in a position of respon-sibility where I may effect positive change to assist our forces engaged in combat today. We are also engaged in a cultural change as the cyberdomain takes the stage with air and space—and that will be historic. Everything we do will be focused on our Air Force mission: Fly, fight and win ... in air, space and cyberspace! ✯


A Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) initiative origi-nally focused on improving the security of individual computers and other equipment is being transformed into an enterprise-level cam-paign to strengthen situational awareness and reinforce command and control over networks throughout the Department of Defense.

The program, called the host-based security system (HBSS), took an important step forward early this summer with the launch-ing of a hosting service at DISA computing centers to help smaller military services and agencies implement the program. While the schedule for the program’s official launch is classified, intensive efforts are under way by both the DoD and IA industry experts to put the program into place globally, train for it and provide operational support.

Mark Orndorff, DISA program executive officer for information assurance and network operations, summarized the program in a recent article: “What we’re doing today is building out an enterprise architecture to take what was originally designed to improve the security of end-points, but pull information from a system and cor-relate it to a DoD enterprise level, so that commanders operating and defending the network will know the status of their security posture, giving us a readiness report card that’s machine generated.

“It will give us the ability to collect and correlate alarms as attacks propagate around the network and will give us the visibility of things such as anti-virus signature updates and anti-virus scan runs—essentially, letting us know what’s on the network. It will also give us the ability to look for what we call ‘rogue’ systems. These could be systems installed by DoD, systems configuration-managed by the DoD operators and defenders, systems added to the network, friendly systems added outside the management control of the net-work operators, and potentially malicious systems,” he explained.

“The whole focus is getting global situational awareness to help us know exactly what’s on the network, the readiness posture of everything on the network, and the network-alerting information to help us fight through an attack,” Orndorff continued.

While the new program will be largely transparent to end-users, DISA officials suggest that it will dramatically change the way administrators and operators of the network do business.

“What we hope we are giving system administrators is a set of tools to improve the security of the networks, and additionally to provide a set of dashboards or views into the status of their network in order to change their whole routine. This will allow them to move from a reactive posture to attacks, to being proactive with the focus on prevention first,” Orndorff said.

“Whether it’s compliance with security policy, updating and patching computers, or maintaining anti-virus, there’s a whole set of things users on the ground who administer networks need to deal with every day,” he pointed out. “HBSS will now give a set of mean-ingful and actionable reports and dashboards to help focus time and attention on the key issues that need to be addressed every day.”

PROGRAM EVOLUTION

HBSS started several years ago as an initiative to try to improve the security of DoD computing platforms. Recognizing that there was a gap in the network when an off-the-shelf computer system was put on the network, officials addressed some specific objec-tives, such as the common problem of buffer-overflow attacks, and decided to buy an encompassing tool to mitigate multiple risks.

In addition, the DoD policy for “infoconing” requires the base-lining of systems to identify all loaded software on a host, and then

DISA HOST-BASED SECURITY PROGRAM EXPANDS TO STRENGTHEN AWARENESS AND CONTROL THROUGHOUT DOD NETWORKS.

BY HARRISON DONNELLY

MIT EDITOR

[email protected]


periodically re-baselining to identify any deltas. Anything found during the re-baselining may cause an attack or threat, thus changing software that wasn’t deliberately installed by the system administrator. The original focus was to automate the baselin-ing effort and provide some specific controls to mitigate a set of attacks.

Since then, awareness and concern over the cyberthreat has grown exponentially, as has DoD’s focus on cyber-operations. With this, a greater need has grown for automation to provide better command and control, better situational awareness, and the abil-ity to operate a network speed with machine-to-machine flows of information.

“Even though those objectives weren’t part of our original focus, we realized HBSS was a great platform to address those emerging requirements,” Orndorff said.

“It seemed like a pretty awesome undertaking even when it started out,” he acknowledged, “but it has definitely grown since then. The good news is we have high-level leadership support for this program. Commanders at all levels are tracking progress in implementation and providing the support to get resources on board to get this operating effectively.”

HBSS is a centrally managed, host-based Tier 3 enclave-level tool, according to Ann Baron-DiCamillo, HBSS program manager. “Within the tool, there are different point products, such as an intrusion detection system and intrusion prevention system, a firewall system, policy compliance reporting, device control capa-bilities, rogue system detection capability, and an architecture capability to include third party and other government developed integration products.

“The ePO server pushes an agent to the host to install, man-age and add to all point products on the host,” Baron-DiCamillo continued. “HBSS supports infocon baselining, robust whitelist capability, buffer overload protection, and situational awareness from an asset alert reporting capability.

“The situational awareness includes a variety of asset informa-tion, such as operating system versions, anti-virus/anti-spyware, and so on. From alert reporting, two-point products within the host-based security system do alerting—the Host Intrusion Pre-vention System, which is the intrusion prevention and detection system, and the anti-virus,” she added.

The system will also have the ability to add government-devel-oped capabilities. This capability can address those specific threats the DoD is experiencing that industry may be unaware of or not especially concerned about. The department will also be able to develop government additions to the framework to address emerg-ing threats or DoD-specific threats and use the HBSS system to push out those capabilities.

DISA’s strategy for implementing and supporting the program also has evolved, officials note. The initial strategy was to set up an enterprise contract and buy a DoD-wide license for software, as well as the key hardware components needed to roll this out. But each component, agency military service and field activity was essentially responsible for developing implementation plans, with some support and training from DISA.

“That’s still the plan that, for the most part, the larger military services are executing,” Orndorff said. “But we’ve added an option where DISA will host some of the infrastructure for the services and components out of our enterprise computing centers. The components will still have the operational responsibility to manage

alarms and operate and defend their portion of the network, but we will take over some of the burden of standing up the infrastructure and maintaining, upgrading and patching it—all the normal responsibilities needed to operate a new capability.

“The enterprise service option has recently become available, with initial implementations occurring over the past month. We are quickly moving out with the fielding process. The specific deadlines are classified, but we’re moving quickly toward the finish line,” he said.

TRAINING NEEDS

Given the pervasiveness of the new system and the major changes it will involve in operations, officials realize training and managing expectations are critical. They are using a variety of methods, including online programs, classroom training and the latest collaboration tools.

For example, the initiative is taking advantage of an existing partnership with Carnegie-Mellon University, which had already developed a capability called the virtual training environment to push general information assurance and security training to users and administrators. “What we did was to take advantage of the capability and build into a group of HBSS-specific modules for high-level leaders, administrators and users,” said Chris Pac-zkowski, chief, CND Enclave Security Division, in support of the program. “It’s a multi-part targeted set of training products, which

2 0 0 9 J O I N T S Y M P O S I U M A N D E X P O

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allows us to deliver the training anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day. For the first time since I’ve been in this business, we’re getting feedback that the online training is better than the classroom training.”

“We’ve always had traditional classroom training for administrators, but we wanted to give more of a focus to the management side,” Baron-DiCamillo explained. “So we’ve worked to create specific classes geared more toward senior management. Instead of going through four days of classes, you can choose different modules that fit your role in the HBSS deployment.”

To address newly emerging topics and focus areas, officials are also using DISA’s Defense Connect Online, which offers a variety of collaboration tools. In addition, teams of enterprise implementers are avail-able to visit locations to assist in getting started.

“During this implementation phase, we’ve tried to set expectations by defining what we think is a safe first step in getting this rolled out,” Orndorff explained. “We have some pretty good plans for where we want to take it next, with at least three waves of improvement already on the drawing boards. By the time we get to the second wave, I’m sure we’ll be thinking about the fourth one. We’ll continue to evolve this to leverage it to the maximum extent possible.”

The program is also coordinating closely with other DoD efforts. The Enterprise Solutions Steering Group—which is led by STRATCOM and includes participation from the military services, National Secu-rity Agency, DISA and other agencies—decides on priorities and develops technical approaches. While DISA then takes the lead on the acquisition side, participants empha-size that it truly represents a DoD enterprise approach to addressing network defense requirements.

“We’re enthusiastic about HBSS, and we’re excited about what this brings to DoD networks,” said Orndorff. “But this is just one component of a strategy to secure and defend the networks. It doesn’t solve all of our problems or eliminate other key defense capabilities that we’re working on in paral-lel. It’s not a silver bullet, but is part of an integrated framework to help defend DoD networks.”

INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

Several companies also are helping with implementation, testing and operational

support. BAE Systems is the prime contrac-tor of HBSS. After extensive market surveys and technical analysis of various vendor offerings, the company selected McAfee Security as technology partner.

“We have formed a close working rela-tionship with DISA through a team-based approach that includes McAfee, other con-tractors, and outside organizations such as Carnegie Mellon to successfully deliver this capability,” said Bruce Thibault, HBSS program manager for BAE Systems.

As lead integrator, BAE Systems is providing cybersecurity engineering, classroom and online training, and global implementation and operations support. The company’s cybersolutions are based on more than 30 years of research, new product development, and new tool and technology evaluation for the defense and intelligence communities.

“BAE Systems is experienced in estab-lishing and operating new cybersecu-rity programs from initial requirements through long-term trends and challenges. We focus on providing expert solutions and field-proven security, driven by our customer’s performance requirements,” said John Lewington, director of enter-prise solutions and identity management for BAE Systems. “With the threat rapidly changing, the BAE Systems cybersecurity team stands ready to support HBSS and other critical cyberprograms. The success-ful deployment of HBSS across DoD will result in a drastic improvement in situ-ational awareness and the security posture of DoD computer systems.”

“Our research teams have seen the same amount of malware in the first half of 2009 that we saw in all of 2008,” said Kent Rounds, director, DoD for McAfee Security. “This explosion in malware, combined with other emerging threats, requires an up-to-the-minute approach in enterprise level security. Centrally managing the network in a holistic manner in order to easily integrate with supporting tools is a para-digm shift in network security protection. Simply put, the objective is security at every layer, combined with global threat intelligence at a breadth, depth and speed to be fully prepared.” ✯



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COMPANIES ARE WORKING TO PROVIDE THE MILITARY AND GOVERNMENT WITH GREEN TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS THAT ACHIEVE ENERGY-SAVING GOALS.BY KAREN E. THUERMER

[email protected] As the Department of Defense and the federal govern-ment push to cut energy consumption, including of elec-tricity for information technology-related needs, industry

is stepping forward with a host of green IT solutions designed to reduce both costs and DoD’s carbon

footprint. The statistics are staggering. According

to a recent estimate, DoD uses almost 30,000 gigawatt hours (GWH) of elec-

tricity a year, at a cost of almost $2.2 billion—enough to power more

than 2.6 million average American homes.

Other statistics indicate that the federal government spends $293 million annually to power PCs and $479.5 million annually to power and cool data centers.

In recognition of the critical need to cut the federal govern-ment’s energy costs and envi-ronmental impact, an executive

order was issued in 2007 aimed at achieving certain energy manage-

ment and reduction goals. Follow-ing suit, last year DoD released its

Electronic Stewardship Plan, which outlines how it will implement those

goals through acquisitions, operations and maintenance, and end-of-life manage-

ment processes. The plan’s requirements include that 95 per-

cent of equipment purchased be certified by the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool; 100 percent of computers and monitors be Energy Star com-pliant; the life of computers be extended to four or more years; and discarded equipment be donated, sold, refur-bished or recycled.

“We do not see so much a push for the reduction of DoD’s carbon footprint as we do a cost savings and


economic focus,” commented David Ryan, chief architect for the HP Federal Group. “But it is not all a cost story on the DoD side, but also tactical requirements.”

HP, Citrix Systems, Microsoft and Intel have formed a coalition to encourage government and industry to be responsible with energy consumption. The coalition was scheduled to hold its second annual “Power IT Down Day” on August 27.

“Last year, over 2,800 government and industry employees pledged to power down their computers, printers and monitors when they left their offices for the evening, which resulted in over 37,000 kilowatt hours saved,” said Tom Simmons, Citrix area vice president for government systems.

Dell, meanwhile, has been working to improve the energy effi-ciency of its products. Since 2006, energy efficiency of Dell laptops has improved 16 percent, and the company has announced a com-mitment to reduce energy consumption by its laptops and desktops by 25 percent by 2010.

Dell also plans to transition all of its new laptop displays to mercury-free LED in the next 12 months. Dell’s 15-inch LED displays consume an average of 43 percent less power at maximum brightness, resulting in cost and carbon savings of some $20 million and 220 mil-lion kilowatt-hours in 2010 and 2011 combined.

EFFICIENT INFRASTRUCTURE

Besides this awareness day, companies are working to provide the government and DoD with green IT solutions that achieve their goals. Among them are products that transform data centers from sprawling server farms into energy-efficient hubs, virtual desktops and applications that can be used across any network and device, and servers that power down monitors so as to use less electricity.

HP is working on an energy-efficient infrastruc-ture that fits around the products themselves.

“What we see in the military is they have lots of data centers, some of which are very good and others that are very bad,” Ryan said. “A lot of easy money can be found by conducting a simple data center analysis using techniques like computational fluid dynamics and thermal analysis.”

This provides a view of any flaws where systems may be operating inefficiently. “Some data centers are over-chilled,” Ryan explained. “That’s because a knee-jerk reaction to keeping data centers cool is to ice them down. That is a waste of money.”

Consequently, HP’s efficient critical facilities group focuses on critical data centers to analyze and come up with solutions to reach optimal efficiency using IEEE standards. Facility and technology assessment services include power and cooling analysis, compu-tational fluid dynamics analysis, thermal zone mapping, energy efficiency analysis, and energy efficiency design. DoD, FAA and the Department of State are among the customers of HP’s mission critical facilities services.

“When we do thermal zone mapping analyses, we identify what should be hot or cold—the chillers, their velocities, and how we can improve their optimization,” Ryan explained. “We take the data center data and compare it against standards. If we have customers who want new centers, we can design and contract the building of the centers to IEEE standards or to whatever tier they need.”

In some cases, systems and applications that are not mission-critical do not require totally redundant power and cooling infrastruc-ture and other support systems. HP offers multi-tiered hybrid designs that can right-size an infrastructure by engineering the facility to incorporate multiple operational environments, each aligned with the business priority and criticality of specific systems and applications.

Systems and application environments that require similar levels of business criticality are grouped within segmented raised floor spaces or modular data centers called performance optimized data centers (POD). A POD is a trailer with 22 industry standard racks that has been optimized to industry standards with a power usage effectiveness (PUE) ratio of 1.25. PUE is determined by dividing the amount of power entering a data center by the power used to run the computer infrastructure within it.

“A traditional center normally has a PUE ratio of 2.0 or more,” Ryan added. “Consequently, PODs are much more efficient than brick and mortar data centers and are modular, mobile and low-cost.”

From a DoD perspective, PODs are an attractive option, particu-larly for data centers that are running out of space and need a quick solution.

“We can put these in within six weeks from the time of order,” Ryan remarked. “If the military is running out of space due to the war effort, we can have a power data center up and running quickly.”

HP is currently doing just that for the Army. To optimize the center’s power at a lower level, HP offers software

solutions such as dynamic power management inside the rack. “I think what is even more interesting is the life cycle logistics

planning, where we work with an individual program and how we can optimize the way servers go from our integration plant to the warfighter as quickly as pos-sible,” he said.

Not only are shipping costs reduced, but also HP can pre-integrate a POD and deliver it directly to the program.

“Lastly, we are working with customers on collabo-rations such as Halo studios, which offer virtual video-conferencing and telepresence solutions,” he added.

HP estimates that each internal Halo studio elimi-nates at least one roundtrip flight per day, or 237 tons of carbon dioxide per studio per year.

On the asset side, HP has been concentrating on optimizing its server storage—blade servers that have

approximately 33 percent less power requirements.“Our printers and notebooks have technology that allows them to

shut down instantly,” Ryan said. “Everything is Energy Star compli-ant.”

The company has been a leader in recycling programs over the past 20 years. It offers skinless systems that get rid of all extraneous packaging, which can be a good solution for large cloud computing infrastructures that take advantage of many small commodity servers with direct attached storage.

Intel, meanwhile, is reducing thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide emissions through remote services and off-hours power management.

The company started early in maximizing performance while minimizing energy consumed on several fronts. On the process side, it initially started with bipolar transistors, then made transitions to positive-channel metal-oxide semiconductor to negative-channel metal-oxide semiconductor, and finally to complementary metal

David Ryan

[email protected]


oxide semiconductor to better manage energy efficiency. Centrino mobile technology was Intel’s first “from the ground up” example of this platform approach.

The company continues to be recognized for its leadership efforts by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Energy. In particular, by working with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Intel made changes to its power supply design guidelines to encourage the development and adoption of more energy-efficient power suppliers. Intel also has a strong focus on leveraging software to drive power savings, despite the fact that most software products are not currently power-aware.

Consequently, Intel is working with the industry, particularly independent software vendors, to improve software sensitivity to battery power and configuration, as well as to tune for power. This includes developing benchmarks to help spur development of soft-ware cooperation with power-conserving devices, as well as making device characteristics and energy saving evaluations part of the oper-ating system vendor design discipline.

LOWER MAINTENANCE COSTS

Microsoft’s work with the Federal Desktop Core Configuration in conjunction with the Air Force has resulted in a standard desktop configuration that helps lower maintenance costs. As a result, the Air Force is moving to standardize its desktop around Microsoft’s Vista software.

“That’s because Vista, unlike previous versions of software, has significant enterprise-level power man-agement capabilities,” said Kim Nelson, executive direc-tor for e-government for Microsoft U.S. Public Sector and former chief information officer for the EPA. “This gives customers a more efficient and environmentally friendly operating system than they ever had before. It helps to leverage savings from the hardware using the software itself.”

As a result, the Air Force expects to save around $15 million per year by using Vista enterprise

“This is huge. In addition, the NRDC has looked at Vista and determined that using it is the equivalent of reducing carbon emissions by about 300 million tons per year, or like taking 400,000 cars off the road per year,” she said, noting that the Army is rolling out Vista as well.

Meanwhile, the company has been focusing on building an end-to-end virtualization strategy—a technology that isolates one com-puting resource from others. By separating the logical operation from the physical hardware, a virtualized environment provides greater operational flexibility and streamlines system changes, to provide an operating environment that strengthens business continuity and scales rapidly to meet demands.

The company is doing some interesting things as well on the server side, where it is implementing systems that turn the processors off as load decreases in the middle of the night. The feature is called Core Parking in Windows Server 2008R2.

“We are moving load to underutilized cores on a multi-core processor,” added Jeff Schnegelberger, core infrastructure solutions specialist at Microsoft. “We will turn two or three of those cores off so that we can show significant power savings as well as savings to air conditioning. We are not generating as much heat, and so do not need as much AC.”

Microsoft is also building the same policies with Windows 7 Client software so that similar savings can be realized, as well as looking at energy savings around Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V hardware-based server virtualization technology.

By going through lab consolidation, Microsoft has found that the system uses 27 percent less energy, saving more than $100 million in hardware and 3.5 billion kilowatt hours per year.

Already, Microsoft is finding it is saving 25 million kilowatt hours per year just by doing virtual consolidation.

“Internally, 80 percent of internal Microsoft IT servers are vir-tual,” Schnegelberger explained, noting that such savings could be especially beneficial to DoD, which generates huge amounts of power in deployed locations from diesel fuel.

“If they can generate less power, then they do not have to deliver as much diesel fuel in trucks, meaning fewer trucks and drivers in convoys,” he said. It also translates to less risk and a better force pro-tection posture for the U.S. military.

END-TO-END VIRTUALIZATION

Meanwhile, Citrix Systems has introduced a server virtualization system called Citrix Essentials for XenServer.

“We can virtualize the physical server and load multiple iterations of an operating system or multiple operating systems—making one server function as 10 servers,” reported Rue Moody, strategic products

technical director, government systems, for Citrix.According to Moody, the average server in a data

center today runs at 30 percent utilization. “Data centers are built to handle peak time

usage; so, for most of the day, 60 percent to 70 per-cent of the server capacity sits idle, drawing power and waiting for that peak demand,” he said. “With Citrix XenServer, we can dynamically repartition servers and have them run on average at 60 percent or 70 percent utilization.”

XenServer consolidates servers, improves system availability and management flexibility to move workloads from server to server as needed. As work-loads change, Citrix can provision the servers to change with them. That creates a lower demand for

the number of physical machines, which mean less power to both run and cool the servers.

XenDesktop and its virtual desktop infrastructure essentially virtualizes desktops—running them in the data center and delivering them to users on-demand—for simpler management, improved data security and increased IT agility. Operating systems and applications are hosted centrally on a server, and the desktop is assembled, identity is verified and the desktop is delivered based on the user’s profile.

“This allows the military to deploy less expensive, lower wattage, longer lasting thin clients for a greener desktop,” explained Moody. “Virtual desktops can, in some cases, double the life cycle of existing end devices.”

With the e-waste involved in the disposal of desktops and laptops, the higher wattage of traditional “fat” clients and the expense of replacing IT hardware, virtual desktops help the military save energy, reduce e-waste and save money at the same time.

“Citrix XenDesktop also helps the Army meet the Thin Client Architecture Standardization for the Army Small Computer Pro-gram,” he added.

Rue Moody

[email protected]


TUC Tactically Unbreakable COMSEC

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Citrix XenApp virtualizes applications—hosting applications in the data center or streaming them to run on user desktops—making them available for use anywhere, online or offline.

“This end-to-end virtualization solution reduces the power needed to operate and cool the data center and enables the use of lower-wattage thin clients. Citrix Delivery Center allows the military to utilize green IT without compromising per-formance,” Moody explained. “With Citrix virtualization solutions, IT departments can achieve their missions while minimizing energy consumption and waste at both the server and desktop levels.”

Citrix Cloud Center (C3) offers an integrated port-folio of Citrix delivery infrastructure products (Citrix XenServer, Citrix XenApp, Citrix XenDesktop, Citrix NetScaler, Citrix Repeater and Citrix Workflow Studio) packaged and marketed to the cloud service provider market. C3 integrates cloud-proven virtualization and networking products that power many of today’s largest Internet and Web service providers.

Citrix contends that this unique combination lets next-generation cloud providers take advantage of the most widely adopted virtual infrastructure platform for hosted cloud services, as well as a proven infrastructure to deliver those services reliably and securely to both cloud consumers and enterprise data centers.

“Again, Citrix virtualization solutions help military data centers save energy by optimizing servers and dramatically reducing the

power needed to run the data center itself, and by enabling thin cli-ents for the military,” Moody noted.

In addition, Citrix offers online services that provide remote access, remote support and Web conferencing solutions, which are ideal for mobile workers such as military personnel in the field.

“Citrix also supports our troops with Citrix WANScaler, which optimizes satellite bandwidth for the U.S. Army and its Warfighter Information Network-Tactical initiative,” Moody added.

Citrix WANScaler facilitates real-time commu-nication for forward-deployed troops within TCP/IP, SCPS and other standard protocols.

“Citrix flow control capabilities reduce latency issues and improve performance up to 30 times over, which means our warfighters quickly and securely receive the IT services they deserve,” he said.

STORAGE SAVINGS

Another major area of potential energy savings is storage, which in today’s data centers accounts for an estimated 37 percent of the total energy consumed. This is why, as federal agencies seek to reduce energy costs and lessen carbon footprint, data storage is moving to the top of the list.

One company in the field, 3PAR Government Systems, reduces energy costs and environmental impact by enabling data centers to replace 2.5 TB of traditional storage with only 1 TB of 3PAR Utility Storage, according to its federal director, Steve Foley. “Virtualiza-tion technologies pioneered by 3PAR—including 3PAR Thin Pro-visioning software—allow data centers to meet performance and service level objectives with 50 percent to 75 percent fewer disks than traditional arrays.”

These capacity savings greatly reduce the amount of energy required to power arrays and cool the data center. But even data centers that do not take advantage of 3PAR’s unique thin technolo-gies still benefit from the built-in energy efficiency of 3PAR arrays, Foley said. “All told, 3PAR customers enjoy a combined annualized energy savings of approximately $7 million.”

According to Foley, an excellent “real world” example of the savings that 3PAR delivers is the Army’s selection of 3PAR Utility Storage for its Distributed Learning System group. “3PAR Utility Storage not only reduced resource consumption by facilitating remote learning programs, but also our Thin Provisioning software has saved the group an estimated 50 percent on capacity purchases,” he said.

3PAR also emphasizes innovative green programs unique to the storage industry, including the 3PAR Carbon Neutral Storage Pro-gram. Through this initiative, 3PAR augments the inherent energy efficiency of its utility storage platform by purchasing carbon offsets for every terabyte of disk capacity sold with 3PAR Thin Provisioning. “Since the program’s inception in 2007, 3PAR has sub.purchased carbon credits to offset nearly 15,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions,” said Foley. ✯

Steve Foley

[email protected]

Contact Editor Harrison Donnelly at [email protected]. For more information related to this subject, search our archives at

www.MIT-kmi.com.

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The release earlier this year of a report on the critical topic of measuring the effective-ness of cybersecurity programs has again highlighted the role of the Department of Defense’s Information Assurance Technology Analysis Center (IATAC) as a “super library” of expertise on IA and defensive information operations.

The report, titled “Mea-suring Cyber Security and Information Assurance,” was one of a series of “state-of-the-art reports” issued by the 11-year-old center. Given the increasing attention paid to cybersecurity by DoD, the cen-ter’s products—from newslet-ters and research reports to a database of expert “graybeards” on specific IA topics—are likely to continue to grow as an important resource in the defense of the nation’s networks.

Perhaps most prominently for DoD and other federal employees, the IATAC regularly provides up to four hours of free research for any inquiries of specific topics, and does so scores of times each month.

As one of 10 information analysis centers (IACs) sponsored by DoD and managed by the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC), which provides a “one-stop” access point to DoD scientific, research and engi-neering information, IATAC’s basic services include collecting, analyzing, synthesizing, producing and disseminating IA scientific and technical information; responding to user inquiries; database operations; current aware-ness activities; and publishing critical review and technology assessments reports and state-of-the-art reports. All 10 IACs perform these tasks within their functional areas.

IATAC is operated for DoD on a contrac-tual basis by Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH). The center’s director, Gene Tyler, is a BAH senior associate who, in his last military assignment, served on the OSD staff as director of the Defensewide Information Assurance Program office.

“IATAC’s mission is to provide DoD a central point of access to information on IA and cybersecurity, emerging technologies and system vulnerabilities, research and devel-opment, modeling and analysis to support implementation of effective defense against information warfare attacks,” Tyler said. “One of our major roles is synchronizing the IA area across government, academia and indus-try. If you look at our core mission as being a key repository for IA and cybersecurity, it would make sense to make sure that anything

that comes out within that mission area is managed at a particular place and made available for reuse across the federal government.

“We’re a ‘super library,’ or a center of excellence,” Tyler continued. “Frankly, a num-ber of our clients have written to us and said we really are a center of excellence, because we can get information across a broad range of topics within

IA. If we don’t solve their problem immedi-ately, we point them in the right direction.”

As a type of government/industry hybrid, IATAC offers a mix of fee and service arrange-ments. In addition to no-charge initial assistance, it does contract research for orga-nizations, such as the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). But the results of that research then go into a database available to other agencies. “If you’re an authorized user—defined as any federal employee or a person from academia or industry who is reg-istered with DTIC—you can ask us a question, and we’re obligated to spend up to four hours researching that,” Tyler explained.

The center receives an average of 60 to 65 requests for information a month, Tyler said, as well as 120 or so requests for documents, all of which are provided free of charge to authorized users.

CURRENT-AWARENESS PROGRAMS

The center has a variety of current-aware-ness programs, including campaigns to make sure those in the field are aware of recent targeted research. It also has a newsletter, in which most of the articles are written by outside subject matter experts (SMEs), as well

as a twice-weekly online digest of links to IA news and analysis. Again, authorized users receive these products at no cost to them.

In addition to receiving guidance from DTIC, the center is steered by a committee of IA experts from across the government, who meet once a year to help determine the emerging technologies and issues that should be worked. “We prepare a list of some of the hot-button issues for DoD, and they generally select one topic for us to work. Then we assign a researcher to develop it, working in col-laboration with DTIC, the 55th Contracting Squadron, which manages our contract, our steering committee of SMEs, and an adviser,” Tyler said.

Based on that input, the topics of the cen-ter’s state-of-the-art reports offer an excellent window into the issues facing IA specialists every day. Currently, the most popular report, with some 490,000 electronic and printed copies in general circulation, addresses soft-ware security assurance.

In addition to this year’s report on IA mea-surement, other recent studies have focused on insider threats, and a possible study focused on security of the software supply chain is under consideration. IATAC has a small staff, which includes a chief scientist and a special-ist on academic integration. But it also has access to a range of outside expertise.

While the center makes use of Booz Allen Hamilton and its experts, it also works with other firms, academia and government to maintain a database of SMEs. “We rely on the resources of Booz Allen, but we don’t want this to be just a Booz Allen-centric solution, but an IA community and government-cen-tric one,” said Tyler.

Indeed, the center devotes considerable effort to identifying and evaluating SMEs, with strict criteria for professional achieve-ment and a panel that reviews qualifications. In addition, it has a list of some 150 “super experts” or “graybeards.”

DTIC’s Website, www.dtic.mil/dtic/iac, offers more information about its work, while more information about IATAC or any of the other nine IACs is available at http://iac.dtic.mil. ✯

State of the IA Art

BY HARRISON DONNELLY

MIT EDITOR

[email protected]



Gene Tyler

INFORMATION ASSURANCE CENTER PROVIDES DOD A CENTRAL POINT OF ACCESS TO INFORMATION ON CYBERSECURITY AND NETWORK DEFENSE.


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New SATCOM Base Station Aids Rescue CommunicationThe new SATCOM Base Station, part of the General Dynamics HOOK2

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Portable Tracking Antenna Supports Ku-band Data Links

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Autotracking Antenna Delivers Video, ISR Data Links

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ADVERTISERS INDEX

MIT CALENDAR & DIRECTORY

CALENDAR

September 9, 2009ComDef 2009Washington, D.C.www.ideea.com/comdef09/

September 14-16, 2009Air and Space ConferenceNational Harbor, Md.www.afa.org

September 14–17, 20092009 Joint Symposium & Expo Atlantic City, N.J.www.joint-symposium-expo.com

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Dynamic Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17www.sstew.com

General Dynamics Information Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11www.gdit.com

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Ultra-Criticom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .C3www.ultra-criticom.com

US Falcon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26www.usfalcon.com

Network Service CentersThe Army plan to establish a global enterprise linked by fi ve operational network service centers represents a major shift in the way it organizes and operates its massive networks.

Army SOA FoundationThe Army’s SOA Foundation is an operating pilot infrastructure with a formalized reference technical architecture, contributing to such efforts as the enterprise decision management system, Web service certifi cation process, and unit management pilot Web service.

Tactical 3GAfter spurring explosive popularity in the civilian sector, 3G wireless technology is holding out promise as an effective tool for tactical communications.

Domain Name SecurityMilitary and other federal agencies face a deadline for strengthening the security of Domain Name Systems against cyber-attacks.

NEXTISSUE

Features:

September 2009Volume 13, Issue 8

Maj. Gen. Susan LawrenceCommanding GeneralArmy Network Enterprise Technology Command9th Signal Command (Army)

Cover and In-Depth Interview with:

Intelligence InteroperabilityA methodology called distributed agent-based systems interoperability is helping to support teaming within the intelligence community.

Software ServiceAs part of the cloud computing movement, the military is exploring the use of software as a service.

NCOIC ReportThe Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium highlights its work to help customers apply standards, analytic tools and processes to realize the benefi t of interoperability.

September 22-24, 2009Biometric Consortium ConferenceTampa, Fla.www.biometrics.org

September 29-October 1, 2009Modern Day MarineQuantico, Va.www.marinemilitaryexpos.com

October 5-7, 2009AUSA Annual Meeting and ExhibitionWashington, D.C.www.ausa.org

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rencechnology Command

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IntelligenceI t bilit


INDUSTRY INTERVIEW MILITARY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Steven Cooper

ForeScout

Steven Cooper served as special assis-tant to President Bush and senior direc-tor for information integration in the White House Office of Homeland Security in 2002, and as the first chief informa-tion officer at the Department of Home-land Security in 2003. In this interview, Cooper discusses the importance of the Access Control Security Technical Imple-mentation Guides (STIGs) developed by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) Federal Infor-mation Processing Standards (FIPS) devel-oped by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the new Con-sensus Audit Guidelines (CAGs) developed by the SANS (SysAdmin, Audit, Network, Security) Security Training Institute.

Q: Who developed the SANS CAGs and what purpose do they serve?

A: In February 2009, a group of U.S. government agencies—NSA, US-CERT, various Department of Defense computer security groups—and the SANS Institute put out a list of “top 20 controls” that was subsequently published as the CAGs. John Gilligan, who chaired the effort, has been a pillar of the community for years. Allen Paller, with the SANS Institute, was very helpful in support of our early information security efforts at DHS and has helped in the development of this list.

The CAGs’ first recommendation is that companies keep a dynamic inventory of authorized and unauthorized hardware accessing their networks to reduce network attacks via unprotected systems. Having a whitelist and inventory of authorized and unauthorized software is also high on the list. The CAGs are scheduled to undergo pilot implementations this year and have a “high probability of becoming a common set of controls” for private industry.

Q: Why is “Inventory of Authorized and Unauthorized Devices” at the top of the control list?

A: Without an inventory, you cannot hope to proceed. I strongly feel that any security

effort, or for that matter most any IT effort, has to start with an accurate understand-ing of what the ground truth is. That is totally dependent upon an accurate inven-tory of your networks, attached devices—including wireless—and all hardware and software in use.

Q: How do the CAGs compare with the DISA access control STIG?

A: The CAGs state you must take inventory of authorized and unauthorized devices. The DISA STIG for access control takes it a step further and states that device access must be controlled at the switch port: “Network ports should be both physically and logically secured to prevent unau-thorized access to the DoD enclave”; and “Both unclassified and classified networks require the implementation of a logical network port security solution.” Not all NAC solutions are alike, so you need to be sure that if you are implementing a NAC solution, it meets this fundamental requirement outlined in the STIG.

Q: Don’t all access control solutions pro-vide this capability?

A: Unfortunately, no. Some NAC solu-tions require the deployment of 802.1X to provide port base access control. Many organizations have yet to deploy it or are not in a position to deploy it, and there-fore look to fulfill the STIG requirement using port-based solutions that are not 802.1X-dependent.

Q: So the key is to control access at the switch port?

A: Yes. The key is to do it in a scalable way without blowing your operations bud-get. Agencies can meet this requirement through “port-based security,” whereby an individual asset is associated with a specific switch port. This type of secu-rity is extremely resource-intensive to maintain, because the network adminis-trator needs to manually modify switch configurations anytime a device is added or moved. Also, the drawbacks of this approach are highlighted in the DISA STIG: It is very easy for someone to spoof an individual machine address and con-nect to the network, thus bypassing this type of solution.

Q: Are there products or educational resources that can help IT staff embrace and apply these recommendations today?

A: Absolutely. In fact, the Army has an approved product list that identifies the access control products that have been tested, proven and certified to work “as advertised.” It’s called the Army Informa-tion Assurance Approved Products List [AIAAPL]. One such tool is CounterACT from ForeScout Technologies, a NAC appliance that does many of the things described above [and other things, as well].

Q: If our readers want to learn more, where can they go?

A: For military, I’d start with the AIAAPL “recommended list of products.” IT staff are asked to trust and use only those solu-tions that have been certified and added to the list, so this will save you some time. I also recommend visiting sans.org to learn more about these latest security controls. And, of course, the DISA STIGs and FISMA FIPs documentation offers a wealth of information. Both can be found on the Web at http://iase.disa.mil/stigs/stig/index.html and http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/sma/fisma/index.html. ✯


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military information technology afitc 13 7

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