MIT 16-11 (Dec. 2012)

www.MIT-kmi.com

C4December 2012

Volume 16, Issue 11

PRSRT STDU.S. POSTAGE

PAIDLEBANON JCT., KY

PERMIT # 805

The Voice of Military Communications and Computing

C4I Commander

Rear Adm. Jerry K. Burroughs

PEO C4IU.S. Navy

SIEM O Protected MILSATCOM O JITC O VoIPCognitive Radio O Capability Set 13

At your service since 1947

36,000 Active-duty students. on bAse. on-site. online.

Learn more • 877-275-UMUC • military.umuc.edu/servesyou

University of Maryland University College is the nation’s largest public university.

Wherever your mission takes you, anywhere in the world, you’ll find University of Maryland University College (UMUC). We offer courses on base or on-site in more than 25 countries—and over 90 undergraduate and graduate programs entirely online. That’s our mission, because since 1947, UMUC has been educating America’s armed forces.

UMUC16072 10.1_MIT-OnBase_OnSite_Online_8.375x10.875.indd 1 10/1/12 3:53 PM

Military inforMation technology DeceMber 2012 VoluMe 16 • issue 11

features coVer / Q&a

16

DepartMents

inDustry interView

28

Rear Admiral Jerry K. BurroughsProgram Executive Officer for

Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence

U.S. Navy

Dinah Gueldenpfennig WeisbergExecutive Vice President and Vice

President of Planning and Government Program AdministrationREDCOM Laboratories

2

3

14

26

27

Editor’s Perspective

Program Notes/People

Data Bytes

COTSacopia

Resource Center

4

Evolving Eye on Network SecuritySecurity information and event management systems seek new ways to track new threats and vulnerabilities.By Peter Buxbaum

23

Test Command Meets Cyber-EraCybersecurity issues, mobile devices and DoD shift to IP based systems pose new challenges, Army Colonel Douglas J. Orsi, commander of the Joint Interoperability Test Command, said in a recent interview.

20

Command by Conference CallThe challenges of Voice over Internet Protocol cannot be ignored, and militant attention must be paid to the quality and efficiency of every call.By Sanjay Castelino

19

Army Rolls Out New Network ApproachThe Army’s new tactical communications network will reduce reliance on fixed infrastructure, extend the range of communications and improve battlefield awareness at the lowest levels.By Claire Heininger

12

Knowing the SpectrumAs the booming popularity of wireless systems collides with the limitations of the radio spectrum, the U.S. military and industry are moving ahead with cognitive radio technology designed to search out the best bands for communicating on the crowded airwaves. By Adam Baddeley

8

New Look at Military SATCOMThe Air Force has launched a two-year study to determine how some commercial satellite services can be brought to the high levels of reliability provided by the MILSATCOM constellation.By Karen E. Thuermer

For all the concern about the cyber-threat and a possible “cyber Pearl Harbor,” there are still a lot of unanswered questions about what a cyber-war would be and how it would be fought. In order to fight and win the cyber-wars of the future, however, the U.S. military needs to develop a comprehensive, end-to-end system that will enable it to understand, plan and manage such a conflict in a large and dynamic network environment.

That argument is the rationale for a new Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) project known as Foundational Cyberwarfare (Plan X), which is looking for innovative research proposals aimed at developing fundamental strategies for dominating the cyber battlespace. The recently announced initiative will not only be asking some interesting questions, but also using some creative approaches to try to answer them.

The DARPA announcement raises a fundamental issue about the current approach to understanding the cyber-domain—a largely “manual” strategy dependent on the number and skill of cyber-experts available. But since an opponent could try to match such a force, the U.S. would be forced to train more and more experts to stay ahead, without achieving the kind of technology development that can provide superior war-fighting capability.

Moreover, the expert approach is not able to keep up with the blazing speed of cyberspace, and offers commanders little help in understanding the potential effects of an operational plan before deciding to act, the announcement contends.

But, the agency goes on, “If the process can be technologically optimized and the time-intensive requirements minimized, commanders will be able to leverage cyber-capabilities in a more flexible manner” to achieve desired cyber-effects.

DARPA is seeking research partners in five technical areas—system architecture, cyber battlespace analytics, mission construction, mission execution and intuitive interfaces. Those selected will be asked to do much of their work at an on-site collaborative research space, which among other things will include regular interaction with military personnel using the system.

Harrison DonnellyEditor

EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE

The Voice of Military Communications and Computing

eDitorial

Managing EditorHarrison Donnelly [email protected]

Online Editorial ManagerLaura Davis [email protected]

CorrespondentsAdam Baddeley • Peter Buxbaum Cheryl Gerber • Karen E. Thuermer

art & Design

Art DirectorJennifer Owers [email protected]

Senior Graphic DesignerJittima Saiwongnuan [email protected]

Graphic Designers Amanda Kirsch [email protected] Morris [email protected] Papineau [email protected] Waring [email protected]

aDVertising

Account ExecutiveCheri Anderson [email protected] Roath [email protected]

KMi MeDia groupPublisherKirk Brown [email protected]

Chief Executive OfficerJack Kerrigan [email protected]

Chief Financial OfficerConstance Kerrigan [email protected]

Executive Vice PresidentDavid Leaf [email protected]

Editor-In-ChiefJeff McKaughan [email protected]

ControllerGigi Castro [email protected]

Marketing & Communications ManagerHolly Winzler [email protected]

Operations AssistantCasandra Jones [email protected]

Trade Show CoordinatorHolly Foster [email protected]

operations, circulation & proDuction

Circulation & Marketing AdministratorDuane Ebanks [email protected]

Data SpecialistsTuesday Johnson [email protected] Walker [email protected] Villanueva [email protected]

a prouD MeMber of

subscription inforMationMilitary Information Technology

ISSN 1097-1041is published 11 times a year by KMI Media Group.

All Rights Reserved. Reproduction without permission is strictly forbidden.

© Copyright 2012. Military Information Technology is free

to qualified members of the U.S. military, employees of the U.S. government and

non-U.S. foreign service based in the U.S. All others: $65 per year.Foreign: $149 per year.

corporate offices

KMI Media Group15800 Crabbs Branch Way, Suite 300

Rockville, MD 20855-2604 USATelephone: (301) 670-5700

Fax: (301) 670-5701Web: www.MIT-kmi.com

Military inforMation technology

Volume 16, Issue 11 • December 2012

www.GIF-kmi.com

Geospatial Intelligence

Forum

www.BCD-kmi.com

June 2012Volume 1, Issue 1

www.BCD-kmi.com

Border Threat Prevention and CBRNE Response

Border Protector

Michael J. Fisher

ChiefU.S. Border PatrolU.S. Customs and Border Protection

Wide Area Aerial Surveillance O Hazmat Disaster ResponseTactical Communications O P-3 Program

Integrated Fixed Towers

Leadership Insight:Robert S. BrayAssistant Administrator for Law EnforcementDirector of the Federal Air Marshal Service Transportation Security Administration

SPECIAL SECTION:

Border & CBRNE Defense

www.MAE-kmi.com

Military AdvancedEducation

www.MIT-kmi.com

Military Information Technology

www.GCT-kmi.com

Ground Combat

Technology

www.MLF-kmi.com

Military Logistics Forum

www.M2VA-kmi.com

Military Medical & Veterans

Affairs Forum

www.MT2-kmi.com

Military Training Technology

www.SOTECH-kmi.com

Special Operations Technology

www.TISR-kmi.com

Tactical ISR Technology

www.CGF-kmi.com

U.S. Coast Guard Forum

KMI MedIa Group LeadershIp MaGazInes and WebsItes

PROGRAM NOTES Compiled by KMi Media Group staff

Army Enhances Resource and Readiness Information

Seeking improved efficiency at a time of fiscal constraints, the Army has released enhancements to a system designed to give service leaders and planners easy access to information about unit readiness and resourcing from a variety of sources.

Fully operational for the past two years, the Army Enterprise Management Decision Support automatically collects data from roughly two dozen data sources on unit readiness, personnel, equip-ment, training and information resources, in order to help guide decision making on deployments and other topics.

The version released earlier this fall by the EMDS G-3/5/7 Program Office delivers new capa-bilities that include:

• Advanced search, filter and data exploration tools, making finding accurate data easy and fast

• Intuitive screens, key words and bookmarking capabilities

• Ability to share information across the enterprise via integrated email

• Accurate and timely Army Enterprise Reports are accessible with one click of the mouse to review and determine unit readiness, personnel, equipment, training and information resources.

In December, the program office released addi-tional capabilities, providing increased visibility of key timeline-to-deployment and equipment information.

Lieutenant Colonel Bobby Saxon, division chief and program manager for the EMDS system, explained that the new version offers more detailed information on readiness. For example, it goes beyond resource information such as number of trucks assigned to a unit to include data on the repair status of the vehicles, which would affect their readiness for deployment.

“Resource information counts people and equipment, but readiness data looks more deeply

into the details, for example to see if personnel or the unit is currently deployable. You may need to find 100 infantrymen for a mission, but if some of them are not fully trained, they are not available,” he noted.

In making the readiness enhancements, Saxon’s office worked closely with the Army’s Operations Directorate to find new sources of infor-mation and ensure that they are being correctly integrated into the information being given to users.

Even before the enhancements, use of the SIPRNet-based system was growing, Saxon reported, as senior leaders look for help in making the tough calls required by tight budgets. “As we move to a smaller, more readily deployable force, it helps to be able to visualize the readiness picture,” said Saxon.

Looking ahead, the office is working on full implementation of resource and readiness dash-boards, which will provide a quick visual picture of status at a glance.

Randall G. Conway has been appointed to the Senior Executive Service and is assigned as principal director for command, control, communications and computers, and information infrastructure, Office of the DoD Chief Information Officer.

Navy Rear Admiral (lower half) Sean R. Filipowski will be assigned as director of intelligence, J2, U.S. Cyber Command. Filipowski is currently serving as deputy director of operations, J3, U.S. Cyber Command.

Navy Captain Robert V. Hoppa, who has been selected for promotion to rear admiral (lower half), will be assigned as deputy director of operations, J3, U.S. Cyber Command.Hoppa is currently serving as director, National Maritime Intelligence Center.

Brian S. Teeple has been appointed to the Senior Executive Service and is assigned as principal director for the deputy chief information officer for command, control, communications and computers, and information infrastructure capabilities, Office of the DoD Chief Information Officer, Pentagon. Teeple

previously served as technical director, Advanced Systems and Technology Directorate, National Reconnaissance Office.

SAP National Security Services has hired Cherreka Montgomery as national vice president for corporate development, where she will work with the intelligence community, Department

of Defense and system integrators. Montgomery’s resume includes experience at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, where she served as principal media spokesperson for the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency, and at the Department of State.

Jim Davidson has been named as sales leader at ViON Corp., responsible for sales in all aspects of ViON’s endeavors, including those in the federal, public sector and commercial markets. Douglas Moore, ViON’s former sales leader, will remain in an active role as executive vice

president, responsible for key strategic relationships and deal planning.

Harris has named James D. Morris group president of the company’s Integrated Network Solutions business, which includes Harris CapRock Communications, Harris Healthcare Solutions and Harris IT Services.

Compiled by KMi Media Group staffPEOPLE

Cherreka Montgomery

James D. Morris

www.MIT-kmi.com MIT 16.11 | 3

Much has changed in the last few years to undermine net-work security postures. Run-of-the-mill hacking has given way to organized criminal activity, and many government agencies and corporations have been victimized by stealthy attacks that have exploited vulnerabilities, disrupted operations, and stolen information.

Perimeter-based security has become virtually obsolete, some analysts contend, in the face of a usage model in which employees, partners and contractors access systems across the Internet, while criminals seek kinds of attacks to exploit that model. Even state-of-the-art detection and preven-tion systems have failed to identify or stop attacks on vulnerable networks. Security teams have come to realize that their IT environments are subject to periodic compromise.

In response, a methodology called security information and event management (SIEM) was developed to help organizations get a handle on network security. But even SIEM is rapidly evolv-ing—or, some would say, being supplanted—by new technologies and process models that seek to bring networks to new levels of security in light of new threats and vulnerabilities.

SIEM has traditionally collected log and event data produced by security devices, network devices, systems, and applications, and aggregated and ana-lyzed that data in an effort to report on vulner-abilities to known attacks. SIEM has also played an emerging and important role in enabling organiza-tions to meet compliance requirements, such as those contained in the Federal Information Systems Management Act (FISMA), applicable to the gov-ernment and government contracting sectors, and Sarbanes-Oxley, applicable to publicly traded com-panies in the private sector.

Detractors argue that SIEM has devolved into an compliance tool that is no longer effective in preventing new-age network attacks. They advocate for a more compre-hensive intelligence solution: one that collects a vari-ety of different kinds of data, including new types of information such as that derived from social media, and exploits new big-data and analytic computational abilities to create a next-generation network security system.

Advocates of SIEM acknowledge that the time has come to adapt it to cloud computing environments. One thing is certain: SIEM, as it has been known and understood for the last few years, is on the move.

“SIEM represents an advancement beyond tra-ditional security tools,” said Kevin Nikkhoo, chief executive officer of Cloud Access, which provides cloud-based SIEM services. “It can collect event data from virtually any network device and bring those logs into a centralized dashboard to generate real-time security alerts and alarms. It is also useful because it can mitigate the risk of false positives that you have with so many security tools.”

“Log management tools centralize and auto-mate the query process, but lack the flexibility and sophisticated correlation and analysis capabilities of SIEM, and ultimately security intelligence,” said Eddie Schwartz, chief information security officer at RSA.

“Some first-generation SIEMs provide behavioral analysis, but it is most often against a silo of data rather than the universe of enterprise activity data,” said Dave Pack, director of LogRhythm Labs. “IT and security personnel remain blind to much of the behavior of today’s hackers because the evidence of their activities is buried among massive volumes of false-positive security events, or they’re miscatego-rized altogether as benign or normal activities.”

Eddie Schwartz

Security information and event management SyStemS Seek new wayS to track new threatS and vulnerabilitieS. by Peter buxbaum, mit correSPondent

Kevin Nikkhoo

Dave Pack

www.MIT-kmi.com4 | MIT 16.11

Systems hacked? Data breached? Credentials compromised? In today’s IT environment, it’s a question

of when, not if. LogRhythm’s SIEM 2.0 security intelligence platform provides a certified solution for Federal and

classified environments that is as easy to deploy as it is to use – at a price that fits within your budget.

It’s time to see what you’ve been missing.

Call 1-866-384-0713 to learn more or schedule a demo. Or visit www.LogRhythm.com/federal

A 2012 LEADERSIEM Magic Quadrant

Certificate of Networthiness FIPS Certified Common Criteria Certified

First Gen SIEM:Costly, Complex, Deficient

SIEM 2.0See what you’re missing.

Further increasing the crippling volume of false positive events in first generation SIEMs is the inherent lack of data cor-roboration in these tools, added Pack. “Traditional uses of behav-ioral and correlative analysis are handled by separate technologies that don’t integrate.”

Security intelligence

The effort to go beyond SIEM to characterize and analyze nor-mative network activity and to generate a holistic view of system security has been dubbed by some “security intelligence.” Security intelligence moves beyond SIEM’s monitoring for and reporting on known threats, to finding abnormal activity patterns in massive amounts of otherwise normal data.

The point of security intelligence is to include a much broader range of data than SIEM, leveraging the full context in which systems are operating. That context includes security and network device logs, vulnerabilities, configuration data, network traffic telemetry, application events and activities, user identities, assets, geo-location and application content.

“The concept of security intelligence is partially realized with SIEM tools,” said Schwartz. “SIEM evolved to improve the signal-to-noise ratio among security tools and to improve general security hygiene. With the advent of Sarbanes-Oxley and FISMA, SIEM’s focus has largely moved toward a compliance reporting and evaluation tool rather than something that would prevent advanced attacks.”

“Security intelligence is an evolutionary development of SIEM,” opined Chris Poulin, chief security offi-cer, Q1 labs, an IBM company. “SIEM originally focused on firewalls and intrusion detection and prevention systems. But that is ineffective when you have the famous incident involving WikiLeaks and Private Manning. There you had an actor obtaining sensitive materials within his autho-rized privileges. Chances are any given security mechanism would fail to detect this kind of action, but analysis of correlated data, applying contexts from multiple sources, may have stopped the leak before it could cause damage.”

“Security intelligence is the process of col-lecting information and applying the knowledge, creativity, and skill of the security team,” said Mark Seward, direc-tor of security and compliance solutions at Splunk. “Organizations have to be concerned about known threats reported by signature- and rule-based systems such as SIEM, as well as unknown threats, which comprise abnormal patterns in normal IT data.”

“The current stage of evolution is analogous to signals intel-ligence in military parlance,” added Poulin. “The next of evolution will be to incorporate the equivalent of human intelligence.”

In today’s environment, traditional SIEM capabilities also are getting refreshed by moving them to the cloud. “SIEM has tradi-tionally been an on-premise solution,” said Nikkhoo. “It has been very expensive because it involves hardware, software, administra-tion, and integration costs, and has a huge footprint. We provide SIEM as a cloud-based service. It’s security as a service.”

Cloud Access’ service reduces the costs associated with installed systems and removes administration and integration

responsibilities from their customers’ shoulders. “We provide 24/7 monitoring, and we have security analysts working 24/7,” said Nik-khoo. “Based on our customers’ business and security policies, we escalate security issues as we see them. We get to learn security abnormalities in our customers’ environments, so we play the role of proactive security partner for our customers.”

In many cases, according to Nikkhoo, the total costs for a cloud-based system are less than the maintenance costs of on-premise solutions because, as is usually the case with cloud-based solutions, the customer pays on the basis of usage. “You can also start off small and add network devices as you go along,” said Nikkhoo, adding that the Cloud Access solution can be deployed in public, private, and hybrid clouds, as well as behind an organization’s firewall.

Q1 Lab’s recent release of its QRadar Security Intelligence Platform 7.1 also includes cloud deployment capabilities through a feature called an event collector. “Event collectors provide con-tinuous event-logging capabilities,” said Poulin. “The event logs are forwarded to an event processor or appliance for correlation, analysis and long-term storage. Event collectors are well-suited for collecting logs in distributed locations.”

The new Q1 release provides a complement of virtual appli-ances that can also be mixed and matched with hardware appli-ances and software form factors to meet specific needs. “These innovations are making it easier for users to leverage cloud investments, simplify management, collect and manage data more flexibly, and replicate or extend QRadar deployments,” said Poulin.

normal data

Developing and deploying security intelligence can be boiled down to two issues. First, the massive volumes of log, flow and machine data generated by network devices, applications and human users cre-ate the perennial big-data problem, with its impli-cations for computing, storage and bandwidth. The second and related challenge is to properly apply analytics to all of this data.

So-called normal IT data, which security intelli-gence solutions endeavor to make sense of, reflects human-to-machine and machine-to-machine inter-

actions and activities that occur every minute of every day. “Normal activities include badging into the building, surfing the web, getting an IP address from a DHCP server, using DNS, using a VPN, using email, and accessing enterprise applications and company information,” explained Seward. “It is in these normal activities where attackers want to hide their activities.”

“It’s not just logs, it’s full packet data” that must be collected, correlated and analyzed, said Schwartz. “It’s data from business systems, mission critical systems, human resources, asset man-agement, and more. It’s like developing situational awareness on the battlefield. To develop an effective intelligence picture, you want to gather data from internal and external sources, classified and open sources. In order to bring in all this data, you have to take advantage of new technologies like full context searching to supercharge the back end and create good analytics on the front end.”

Mark Seward

[email protected]

6 | MIT 16.11 www.MIT-kmi.com

MIT 16.11 | 7www.MIT-kmi.com

“Big-data problems boils down to the three Vs: volume, velocity and variety,” said Poulin. “In the case of security intelligence, the variety of data presents the biggest challenge.”

One of the areas being tackled by security intelligence with big-data capabilities is detecting anomalies in user behavior. “It is possible to baseline normal activity for network traffic and to create an analytic profile,” said Poulin. “For example, most activity will probably take place during regular business hours and will follow consistent volume patterns. If there is sudden activity during off hours or a spike during regular hours, that could constitute an anomaly to be investigated. Analytics can be fine-tuned to watch for the potential exfiltration of even small amounts of sensitive data.”

“Taking a big-data approach toward IT security allows you to form hypotheses around risk problems, and to work toward figuring out what kinds signals indicate potential problems. That is com-pletely different from the traditional SIEM approach of providing answers based on a set of rules,” said Seward.

A security intelligence system might look for incidents of net-work users repeatedly trying to access unauthorized areas. Or it might calculate the differential between the time it takes humans and software to log into a network or application, which could indi-cate a malicious actor at work. Alternatively, the system might be devised to detect incidents where a user is entered in an active direc-tory but there is there is no corresponding badge access or entry onto a virtual private network. That could mean that a machine has been compromised or that someone is sharing credentials.

“These kinds of situations can’t be accounted for by perimeter defense systems,” said Seward.

LogRhythm recently introduced an enhancement to its SIEM 2.0 big-data security analytics platform with a capability it calls multi-dimensional behavioral analytics. “With this innovation, LogRhythm is enabling organizations to baseline normal, day-to-day activity across multiple dimensions of the enterprise,” said Pack. “The system then analyzes against that baseline the massive volume of log, flow, and machine data generated every second to dis-cover anomalies in real time. By doing so, LogRhythm is enabling IT administrators and security professionals alike to detect and respond to even the most sophisticated threats and breaches.”

There are a number of ways to baseline system activity, noted Pack. “You can pick a select server and only model its activities,” he explained. “You can monitor the number of users of systems over time and create rolling averages to model the expected numbers of users logged into a system at any given point. Then you create parameters of what constitutes normal and abnormal usage, so that when activity deviates from the normal, an alert can be generated and further investigation instigated.”

Splunk’s security intelligence release can detect patterns of human activity and be set to monitor that for thresholds and outli-ers that can reveal stealthy malware activities. “Splunk’s analytics language supports threat scenario-based thinking that allows the security professional to ask any question of the data, ultimately searching for unknown threats,” said Seward.

index management

But with such massive data volumes come management chal-lenges. In response, Q1 developed new index management capabili-ties in its latest release.

“QRadar’s default search indexes provide indexing for the most commonly used properties,” said Poulin. “Now we’re taking indexing a step further, enabling customization and fine-tuning. Users have control over the creation of search indexes that enable querying. We have also added the ability to customize indexing for the event and flow database, so that users can create new indexes to optimize the system for their specific needs. Additionally, we have released more than a dozen new product integrations that enable users to normal-ize and analyze even more types of security telemetry. Our customers have been using QRadar to correlate as many as one million events per second in real-time.”

RSA has released a product, currently being tested by customers, that tackles the back-end problem of organizing full-packet log data from hundreds of hosts and devices and creating normalized views into all types of data. “It also brings together lots of different analytics capabilities in a single user interface,” said Schwartz. “The capability will include correlation of vast amounts of full-packet and log data, and will solve performance problems related to data correlation.”

For Nikkhoo, the distributed nature of today’s computing and the movement of applications and systems to the cloud go hand in hand with a new approach toward network security. “We have developed a patent-pending product that provides an identity management system allowing users to be provisioned and de-provisioned to access applications and data, and with all of that information integrated into a single SIEM dashboard.”

A cloud-based solution becomes necessary as organizations move applications to the cloud. “The question becomes how to provision users into cloud applications,” said Nikkhoo. “It’s not just devices that need to be made secure. You also need to know who is access-ing or trying to access applications and data. We call this universal security.”

Eventually, the cyber-equivalent of human intelligence will be incorporated into SIEM, according to Poulin. “Activity on social net-works can provide a lot of relevant information,” he said. “Much of this is unstructured data, so we need to make more progress to allow system to understand natural language.”

For a start, social networks provide information on who is associ-ated with whom and what people are up to. “For example,” Poulin explained, “we may find that Joe is logging into a system from Russia, when his social network activity shows he is hanging out in a bar in Boston. Security intelligence can incorporate information that is truly human.”

“The key thing is agility in response to adversaries,” said Schwartz. “That is why we are looking at data structures other than traditional SIEM. We are looking at open architectures that allow for plugging in analytics of any kind, not just our own. All these capabili-ties are important as we think about what we need for the computer network defense of the future.”

“People’s mindsets are changing,” added Seward. “Security pro-fessionals understand that attackers are getting more creative. In that world, providing SIEM data on a platter isn’t good enough any-more. Security professionals themselves have to get more creative about how they use data and what data they go after. Creativity is paramount when dealing with creative attackers.” O

For more information, contact MIT Editor Harrison Donnelly at [email protected] or search our online archives

for related stories at www.mit-kmi.com.

As the military struggles with the dilemmas of cost and secu-rity in satellite communications, the Air Force has launched a two-year study, involving more than a dozen companies, that seeks to determine how some commercial satellite services can be brought to the high levels of reliability provided by the military SATCOM constellation.

The study comes at a time when, spurred by UAV video feeds and other data intensive applications, the military’s need for SATCOM has remained strong even as conflicts in Southwest Asia wind down. Mean-while, budget restraints are pressing the case for cost savings while reducing support for expensive new programs.

Designed to survive the harshest conditions of conflict and disaster, the nation’s protected MILSATCOM constellation provides communications “when it absolutely, positively has to be there,” to borrow a phrase from an overnight delivery company’s advertising pitch of some years ago. The Milstar program, for example, provides the president, secretary of defense and military leaders with assured, survivable SATCOM with low probability of interception and detection. Designed to overcome enemy jamming and nuclear effects, Milstar is the most robust and reliable SATCOM system currently employed by the Department of Defense.

But MILSATCOM programs offer only a small fraction of the capac-ity needed by the military. They are expensive, moreover, and, in the eyes of critics, take too long to develop and deploy.

Commercial SATCOM providers have filled the gap, opening a huge market and supplying the vast majority of capacity for forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite the best efforts of providers, however, these commercial services are just not designed to provide super-hardened links, especially in the face of determined attacks by a nation-state adversary.

“As our dependence on these systems has grown, especially over the past two decades, adversaries are increasing their efforts to disrupt, deny access to, and intercept our communications,” noted Al Tadros, vice president, civil and DoD business, Space Systems/Loral (SS/L).

For that reason, the Air Force recently embarked on a major con-tracting initiative to develop protected MILSATCOM, under the lead-ership of the Military Satellite Communications Systems Directorate (MSCD), which is one of several units that make up Air Force Space Command’s Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC).

The initiative is intended “to demonstrate and determine the feasi-bility and affordability of using existing and/or narrowly modified com-mercial protected satellite communication systems to support future protected MILSATCOM needs in the FY20+ timeframe,” according to the command.

“The current approach to MILSATCOM systems is recognized by DoD as unaffordable for the future,” Tadros remarked.

SMC solicited proposals to architect, prototype and demonstrate specific elements of such protected MILSATCOM design concepts focused on improved life-cycle affordability.

The goal of these contracts is to enable a next generation pro-tected tactical system by using an unclassified waveform that jointly meets the needs of multiple services across the DoD while also iden-tifying more affordable design concepts. These needs include remote piloted aircraft support for the Air Force, protected communication on the move for the Army, and tactical maritime operations for the Navy.

MSCD consists of five divisions and one branch. The Protected SATCOM Division provides survivable, global, secure, protected, jam-resistant communications for high priority military ground, sea, and air assets, while the Enhanced Polar Division is the next-generation


air force StudieS how Some commercial Satellite ServiceS can be brought to the high levelS of reliability Provided by the milSatcom conStellation.by karen e. thuermer

mit correSPondent

SATCOM system that will replace the current Interim Polar System and serve as a polar adjunct

to the Advanced EHF system. The Wideband SATCOM Division pro-vides worldwide, high-volume, voice and data communications to the warfighter.

In addition, the Advanced Concepts Division is responsible for defining next generation SATCOM capabilities to meet war fighting needs for the Joint Space Communications Layer, and the Space and Nuclear Networks Division develops, acquires and operationally deploys communication terminals synchronized to support satellite weapon system operations and provides support for 16,000 aircraft, transportable and fixed site terminals. The MILSATCOM Command and Control Branch directs the Command and Control System-Consolidated program and is responsible for satellite command and control system development for all MILSATCOM systems.

contract detailS

Analysts describe the recent contract awardees as including mul-tiple small businesses that enhance affordability, commercial contrac-tors who provide new insight, and traditional MILSATCOM system design contractors. Those contractors that received awards on the low end (about $150,000) will participate in a working group, while those on the high end (roughly $10 million) will build hardware and perform demonstrations and testing.

The study, which kicked off in October 2012, will last approxi-mately 24 months. At the study’s end, some companies will deliver hardware and/or software, while others will perform product demon-strations at a federal research facility or “in-house.”

These awards will also improve the government’s understanding of cost, development schedule, and performance profiles of candidate component technologies and the respective building blocks that address future protected tactical communications.

To meet requirements, the government identified elements of space, ground and terminal segments for risk reduction and demonstration activities during the BAA. These include examining best placement of processing functions between the space, terminal, and/or ground segments relative to current traditional highly pro-tected MILSATCOM system designs. To study the various aspects noted above, each selected contractor will bring a unique idea and capability to the study. Furthermore, each company will present architecture solutions unique to its strengths.

For example, protected, strategic MILSATCOM must be able to provide low probability of interception/detection/exploitation (LPI/LPD/LPE), survivable, anti-scintillation and anti-jam communi-cations, as well as nuclear command and control services in all operational environments: nuclear, contested and benign. Protected, tactical MILSATCOM must be able to provide anti-jam and LPI/LPD/LPE communications in both contested and benign operational environments.

milStar and advanced ehf

One company playing a major role in the MILSATCOM study is Northrop Grumman Systems, which won an $11 million contract for protected MILSATCOM waveform specification development, afford-able protected space/ground segment design and demonstration, and affordable mission planning and management demonstration.


For nearly 30 years, Northrop Grumman has provided sophis-ticated and robust protected satellite communications payloads to Lockheed Martin Space Systems as its principal subcontractor for the Milstar and Advanced Extremely High Frequency (EHF) assured, anti-jam satellite systems.

In addition, Northrop Grumman has provided two protected EHF payloads for the Enhanced Polar Sys-tem, providing protected communications for the Navy in the Arctic regions. These two payloads will be hosted on satellite systems being launched into highly elliptical orbit in fiscal year 2015 and FY17.

“Milstar and Advanced EHF are the commu-nications systems the president and U.S. military commanders use for the most strategic and critical exchange of military information worldwide,” said Stu-art Linsky, vice president, Communications Systems, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems.

The reliance of the nation’s senior leadership on Milstar was dem-onstrated following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Milstar was used for relaying secure communications to President Bush, giving him the flexibility to move around for security reasons. Although safety concerns prevented his return to Washington that day, Bush was able to talk with key members of his administration and DoD while flying aboard Air Force One.

“The modern warrior depends on the advantages supplied by information-centric operations,” commented Linsky. “With an array of aerial vehicles packed with rich sensors, and a global information grid at their fingertips, military troops need to send and receive life-saving information with the confidence it will get through without interruption.”

Linsky sees this as being the benefit of protected SATCOM. “It’s immune from interference, and cannot be detected by adversaries,” he stated. “Therefore, it won’t give away the positions of fighting forces like most other kinds of military SATCOM in use today.”

Because of heavy demand, however, most military satellite com-munications traffic is transmitted on vulnerable commercial SATCOM channels that comprise the bulk of space-based communications. Only about 1 percent of defense SATCOM communications is secure and protected against intercept and jamming threats.

While this is an acceptable solution for many noncritical functions, the pervasive use of unprotected satellite communications could leave the U.S. and its allies highly vulnerable to adversaries that are increas-ingly seeking to deny us the information advantage we currently have.

In addition, the Milstar and AEHF architecture includes sig-nificant protections from physical attacks to vulnerable ground-based gateways and stations. Milstar and AEHF utilize payload crosslinks that transmit communications through space from satellite to satel-lite, out of reach of adversaries who could take advantage of ground stations as vulnerable, weak links.

“Our military services and Congress have documented the sub-stantial investments that potential adversaries are making in anti-satellite systems based on cyber-attacks, jamming, spoofing, ground and space kinetic kill, and even less sophisticated ways of disrupting service,” reported Linsky. “The country’s dependence on unprotected SATCOM is a potential Achilles heel.”

focuS on affordability

Given that DoD recognizes that the current approach to MISAT-COM systems is unaffordable for the future, SS/L officials say they are focusing its contract award on the development of affordable protected tactical communication (PTC) systems.

SS/L, a leading provider of commercial satellites, won a $10.1 million contract for protected MILSATCOM wave-form specification development, affordable protected space/ground segment design and demonstration, and affordable mission planning and management demon-stration.

Given SS/L’s position as a prime contractor leading several protected communications system and tech-nology domain expert companies, officials say it is posi-tioned to provide solutions with shorter schedules and lower, better controlled cost, to defend against growing and changing intentional jamming and cyber threats, and to deliver advanced communications capability to the warfighter.

Companies in MILSATCOM Study

The Space and Missile Systems Center in September awarded 17 contracts totaling $84.3 million as a result of the broad agency announcement (BAA) for the “Protected Military Satellite Communications Design for Affordability Risk Reduc-tion Demonstration.”

Consequently, the following companies will participate in multiple areas of focus across the BAA:

• Waveform specification development: Boeing, Space and Intelligence Systems; Northrop Grumman Systems; Space Systems Loral; Raytheon; L-3 Communications, Communications Systems West; Hughes Network Systems; ViaSat, Comsat Laboratories; L-3 Communications, Communications Systems East; Orbital Sciences; General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems; Space Micro; Lockheed Martin, Space Systems Company; Harris, Government Communications Systems; Hughes Design Group; Arkham Technology Limited; and General Dynamics C4 Systems.

• Affordable protected space/ground segment design and demonstration: Boeing, Space and Intelligence Systems; Northrop Grumman Systems; and Space Systems Loral.

• Affordable gateway risk reduction and demonstration: Lockheed Martin, Information Systems and Global Solutions; and Northrop Grumman Systems.

• Affordable mission planning and management demonstration: Boeing, Space and Intelligence Systems; and Hughes Network Systems.

• Affordable terminal design and demonstration: Raytheon; and L-3 Communications, Communications Systems West.

• Affordable terminal cryptographic component development and demonstration: ViaSat, Comsat Laboratories; and L-3 Communications, Communications Systems East.

Stuart Linsky


For the SMC’s protected MILSATCOM program, SS/L is involved in helping remedy existing gaps in the space communications layer and demonstrate specific design concepts focused on improved life-cycle affordability that will meet the warfighter needs far into the future.

PTC will integrate multiple technologies to provide robust and resilient mobile networks for future U.S. warfighters and coalition partners.

“Affordability is the primary challenge for future PTC, and our effort will be focused on developing affordable alternatives to the sys-tems being implemented today,” Tadros said.

Many effective technological solutions exist that can provide protected communications, but too often these technologies and approaches come with prohibitive costs. If future solutions can lever-age the current commercial wireless standards and approaches, the government will be able to expand the industry supplier base and increase competition, yielding more affordable PTC, he suggested.

SS/L’s current PTC effort with the Air Force spans multiple risk reduction phases and demonstrations over the next couple years. “After these risk reduction demonstrations, we envision flight demon-strations with a potential operational system or systems in the latter half of this decade,” Tadros emphasized.

nuclear Survivability

One issue concerning the MILSATCOM contract is technological advances that make it possible for satellite communications to be tough enough to continue working through a nuclear war.

Two protected communications satellite constellations currently on orbit are nuclear survivable and are capable of surviving an electro-magnetic pulse and capable of quickly regaining communications in the scintillation or scrambling that occurs to non-EHF radio frequen-cies following a nuclear detonation.

A Lockheed Martin/Northrop Grumman industry team pioneered protected SATCOM capabilities, matured them and continues to refine them as necessary, Linsky said, adding, “But no new capabilities or technologies are needed at this point.

“The overwhelming reason nuclear survivability is essential—along with anti-jam capabilities—is that without them, adversaries could deny the president and military leaders command and control of their own military forces,” Linsky continued. “That’s a completely

unacceptable proposition and the reason why the Air Force has made protected SATCOM a top priority.”

As the name of these contracts—“protected military satellite communications design for affordability risk reduction demonstration”—indicates, the remaining obstacle to making protected SATCOM widely available among all military services is its cost.

Northrop Grumman’s goal is to help the Air Force meet affordability and resiliency goals for protected mili-tary communication satellite capabilities. “The progress we have made on the Enhanced Polar System hosted pay-loads demonstrates that Northrop Grumman’s protected SATCOM technologies are scalable,” Linsky emphasized. “These technologies are proven and on orbit aboard two operational Advanced EHF satellites. The Low Cost Ter-minals we have developed in conjunction with industry teammates Lockheed Martin and TeleCommunication Systems show our commitment to driving down the

cost of protected SATCOM as an important component of an evolved space architecture for this critical capability for strategic and tactical fighting forces.” O

CSSS.NET DeliversCSSS.NET helps our federal clients reduce total cost of ownership and free up budget for new priorities. Celebrating 15 years serving our federal clients, we offer proven solutions to critical challenges for a variety of military, intelligence and civilian agencies nationwide. We provide:

Premier Practice Areas• Cyber Security

Information Assurance• Process Engineering

• CMMI Level 3 – SEI Certifi ed

• Systems Engineering Network & Desktop Operations

• Software Engineering

Mission RequirementsMission Solutions

[email protected]

Washington, DC: (202) 393-5464Bellevue, NE: (402) 393-8059

SBA 8(m) SDB WOSB VOSB SDVOSB

Wide range of contract vehicles• 8(a) STARS II GWAC:

GS-06F-0675Z • Constellation I/FAs 1, 2, 3, 4• Constellation II/FAs 1, 2, 3, 4

• Other Contract Vehicles• GSA IT 70, GSA VETS GWAC• USAMS II, NETCENTS I/II• Navy SeaPort-e• TIPSS 4- CS & ITS

Subject Matter Expertise

An industry team has developed Low Cost Terminals for Protected Satellite Communications on the Move (P-COTM) that cost one-tenth as much as currently fielded terminals with similar capabilities. The team consists of Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and TeleCommunication Systems. Show here is the P-COTM terminal mounted on a test vehicle. [Photo courtesy of Northrop Grumman]




As the booming popularity of wireless systems collides with the limitations of the radio spectrum, the U.S. military and industry are moving ahead with cognitive radio technology designed to search out the best bands for communicating on the crowded airwaves.

Cognitive radio is essentially a type of software-defined radio technology that gives the devices the smarts to think for themselves, choosing the frequency, protocols and waveform best suited for the type of communication needed, overcoming jamming, terrain and other obstacles without the need for operator intervention.

Along with improving transmission capacity and reducing inter-ference, a cognitive radio’s software defined architecture allows it to fulfill other functions, enabling the radios’ RF hardware to be used for signals intelligence or jamming IEDs. In effect, the cognitive radio becomes a converged device for soldier and vehicle on the battlefield, shrinking the carried or on-board footprint and saving weight and power.

After more than a decade of research and development of the cog-nitive radio concept, with money invested in this area by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and industry, cognitive capabilities are on the cusp of being fielded.

“Simply from its title, a cognitive radio is cognizant of its envi-ronment and can dynamically change its operation based on learning about its environment, constrained by both policy and etiquette,” explained Byron Tarver, director of technology for secure com-munications and computing technology for General Dynamics C4 Systems.

Policy is the hard and fast rules, Tarver explained, giving the example of usage parameters for the 121 and 143MHz Guard Chan-nel, while etiquette would be the way users in a network establish their own, sometimes ad hoc, rules governing usage. Both examples use the spectral environment, with cognitive radio being closely associated with the management of operational spectrum usage.

Precursors to cognitive ability have been fielded for decades, although users may not see them as such. Tarver gave the example of automatic link establishment used in high frequency communi-cations, by which both radios can signal back and forth, sounding

channels to establish the best configuration in terms of frequency and adapting the modem accordingly.

Other cognitive capabilities we already use in our day-to-day life without realizing it, he said. “Cookies on your computer are a mechanism by which vendors can understand individual users and their buying patterns, and adjust marketing on an individual basis. That is a cognitive type of functional understanding of users and their needs, and then reacting to specifically advertise to that user.”

accommodating uPgradeS

Spectrum utilization is only one, albeit a very important, part of the rationale for cognitive radio. For the Department of Defense, as opposed to commercial users, cognitive technology must have a wider remit while remaining tied to the same basic principles.

“The Army is still looking at what cognitive radio means to them and to how do they do business in the future,” Tarver noted. “For our part, we present them with an array of capabilities that are avail-able on how we are going to utilize those and what also makes sense because, even though you can do lots of things, there are concerns about overwhelming the soldier.

“On the DoD side, we are still dealing with individuals. As we amass tremendous amounts of data, how do we tailor that to specific commanders without overwhelming them with data? A commander is still an individual and individuals assimilate information differ-ently. How does a commander think? One may want to see things graphically but another individual may want to see the raw data from the source to make a decision,” he continued.

Tarver outlined the strategic intent underpinning General Dynamics C4 Systems’ approach to software and hardware regard-ing cognitive radios, ensuring that investments today, which will be fielded for years to come, can accommodate cognitive upgrades in the future.

“We want to make sure that as we roll these radios out, they are capable of doing those kind of functions. These radios will be deployed very widely on the battlefield, so turning an individual

cognitive radioS tackle SPectrum crunch with technology deSigned to Search out the beSt bandS for communicating on the crowded airwaveS.

by adam baddeley, mit correSPondent


soldier into a sensor is now a reality. Applications on that soldier radio can be used to understand or scan their environment and report back, and that data then be fused for a total operational pic-ture,” he said. “We are looking at using the existing communication channels that are being put in place as the bearer for the traffic and bringing all the information back. It is still going to take some more time to understand the precedence of operations: who sets the policy for precedence and how does that take place, so that when a soldier needs to make an emergency voice call that takes precedence over sensor information that is being sent. A lot of that still needs to be worked out.”

General Dynamics C4 Systems splits its work on cognitive radio between internal development and contract work, illustrated by its partnership with DARPA on the latter’s Next Generation (XG) radio program.

“Right now DARPA is doing a lot of work at the algorithm level looking at specific capabilities,” said Tarver. “We are looking at being able to host these capabilities on a platform. All of the cognitive capa-bilities we have tested have been on our existing platforms without hardware modernization.”

local SPectrum SenSing

While spectrum is important, it’s just one part of a bigger puzzle in defining cognitive radio, said Eric Whitehall, chief engineer at ITT Exelis.

“My definition is that it learns about its environment and makes the best decision in a distributed manner to maximize the perfor-mance of the network in given area. It listens and communicates with everyone else and it figures out what is best for the group,” he said.

Whitehall breaks the cognitive radio concept down into several building blocks of capability. The first is local spectrum sensing, which is a focused effort designed to establish the best frequency for two radios to communicate. Moving out, the next step would be spectrum sensing on a networkwide scale over many radios.

Adaptive transmit power algorithms would then be included to set power levels only to the level required for that signal, similar to a cellular picocell or femtocell approach, rather than clutter the frequency with overly powerful signals. This would be followed by an adaptive antenna solution such as beam forming and multiple input/multiple output (MiMo) for further efficiency. Adaptive networking algorithms would further improve the system by converging traffic along the best path.

The final aspect in Whitehall’s list is parallel applications. “The idea is changing your voice codec depending in what your channel capacity and capabilities are: higher quality voice, lower quality voice or last-ditch voice. One of the techniques I saw at least over a decade year ago was the ability to digitize the voice capability and convert it into text, append it to the end of the message so that if you got the bits through you could undo that voice in a text-to-speech conver-sion. This is an example of the ability to adapt applications to meet the overall needs of the network. A solution that takes into account all layers of the protocol stack is where cognitive radio needs to end up. This is the end goal.”

ITT Exelis’ work on cognitive radios has focused on spectrum sensing and measurement. “We are doing some of the decision mak-ing process; detecting frequencies, adjusting data rates, modulation and adaptive power and data rates while listening,” Whitehall said.

There is going to have to be quite bit of technical and cultural change to make cognitive radio happen and implemented in current infrastructures, said Whitehall, who outlined one such scenario: “If you create a subnet of cognitive radios, the cognitive radio will figure out you have a SINCGARS here and an SRW running there and say, ‘Let’s use 630Mhz to do MiMo for high capacity without interfering with the detected networks.’ However, getting a cognitive radio to cooperate with a legacy SINCGARS or SRW waveform with radios that don’t understand cognitive techniques is going to be difficult.”

Backfilling in-service and SDRs shortly to enter service is pos-sible, but it will depend how much sensing capability manufactur-ers have placed in the RF front end. Adding additional hardware to enable a future capability creates an additional cost, and unless that additional capability is required for the initial contract it may be uncompetitive to provide that future capability.

As it stands, the additional capabilities required to support cogni-tive capabilities may lend themselves on cost and technical ground to larger vehicle mounted systems rather than lower unit cost, power efficient dismounted sets.

digital Signal ProceSSing

“All of the Joint Tactical Radio System radios have general pur-pose programming (GPP) and digital signal processing (DSP), and they all have various numbers of these, each manufacturer being a little different,” Whitehall said. “If you put a lot of this capability into your radio system for the higher complexity, more intensive wave-forms, you can add cognitive capabilities later. If you try to minimize power and cost on your solution, then maybe you have less process-ing capability in your solution and you are going to be challenged to operate these new cognitive capabilities where you don’t have lot of spare capacity.

“With SINCGARS and HAVE QUICK, which are two examples of lower data rate waveforms, the processors are probably twiddling their thumbs with lots of capacity sitting idle. With the higher throughput waveforms, the DSP and FPGAs and GPP are getting tasked with all of the processing required for SCA 2.2. compliance and CORBA exchanges. This may cause a radio design to run out of processing power. Almost everything is software, with the excep-tion of the RF hardware listening pieces. For a cognitive capability, you have to have the sensor piece correct right at the start. I do not know for sure if the SDRs today have the listening piece done well enough,” he continued.

“It just takes time to get it working properly operational, and I think cognitive radio is going to go through the same thing. I think we are a decade away. I think you are going to see little improvement here and there but you are not going to see a ‘Joe Mitola’ vision of cognitive radio for about a decade or so,” he said, referring to the engineer who first proposed the cognitive radio concept.

To do this, he said, there has to be a high degree of cooperation in industry. “Each of the companies involved in cognitive radio have their little pieces, and trying to put together those solutions is essen-tial. Companies either have to invest in everything or they have to partner and acquire those techniques.” O




New Contract Supports Advanced Tactical Comms

The Army has awarded a new contract to enable the acquisition of hardware, software, services and data in support of the Program Executive Office for Command, Control, Communications-Tactical (PEO C3T) mission over a five-year ordering period. The Global Tactical Advanced Communication Systems (GTACS) contract is one of the largest contracts the Department of Defense plans to issue within the next few years. By utilizing the GTACS contract and its group of 20 defense contractors, it is expected that the government will realize significant cost savings, while enabling industry to quickly fill needed mission require-ments with innovative solutions. The companies selected were CACI Technologies, D & S Consultants, DRS Technical Services, Envistacom, General Dynamics One, Globecomm Systems, Harris, ITT Exelis, L-3 Services, Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems, Morgan Franklin, Nexagen Networks, Northrop Grumman Systems, Raytheon, Rockwell Collins Satellite Communications Systems, Science Applications International Corp., Scientific Research Corp., Telecommunications Systems, Trace Systems and Viasat. The GTACS contract will be managed by PdM SATCOM under Project Manager Warfighter Information Network-Tactical, which is assigned to PEO C3T.

Mobile Device Security Service Protects Mobile

Devices

Blue Coat Systems has introduced the Blue Coat Mobile Device Security (MDS) service, enabling businesses to extend the boundaries of the security perimeter to iOS devices in any location, on any network. The new security-as-a-service closes the security gap that leaves businesses without a control point over mobile browser applications and exposed to Web-based threats. The Blue Coat MDS service operates at the network level, versus the device level, to extend the same protection and control that is available in headquarters to mobile devices in any location. This approach allows organizations to embrace mobile devices by delivering advanced defenses, granular application and operation controls, and contextual policies to balance the demand for network access from employees with the security needs of the business. The MDS service is newest component of the Blue Coat Unified Security solution, which delivers global threat protection, universal policies and unified reporting to all users on devices across the organization.

Contract Funds New Aerostat Radio Relay Products

Syntonics, a provider of advanced technology RF-over-fiber products, has received an additional $8.6 million contract from the Army for its FORAX-HARC (high antennas for radio communications) aerostat radio relay products. This is a Small Business Innovation Research Phase III contract. Key technologies were developed under an earlier effort funded by the Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare System Command to develop prototype HARC systems for the Wideband Network Waveform (WNW). Those prototype HARC-WNW systems participated successfully in the Army’s Network Integration Evaluation 12.1 and were recommended for fielding. HARC systems are now available for all tactical communications waveforms used by the Army, including the Advanced Networking Wideband Waveform, the new Soldier Radio Waveform, the new WNW, and the SINCGARS and EPLRS waveforms.

Air Force Orders Friend-or-Foe Interrogators

of AWACS Aircraft

Telephonics Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Griffon Corp., has been awarded a $60 million multi-year contract from the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center. Under the contract, Telephonics will supply the AN/UPX-40 Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) Interrogator for integration on to the Air Force E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control (AWACS) aircraft, including installation kits, installation, and sustainment support. The Telephonics family of interrogators includes the only IFF interrogators to achieve Department of Defense AIMS certification in all modes, including MARK XII, Mode 5, Mode S and Multi-channel ADS-B. The AN/UPX-40 provides the AWACS aircraft with an unprecedented air surveillance capability in support of the integrated command and control battle management capability. The real-time air surveillance picture provides situational awareness of friendly, neutral and hostile activity, command and control of an area of responsibility, battle management of theater forces, all-altitude and all-weather surveillance of the battlespace, and early warning of enemy actions during joint, allied and coalition operations.


DATA BYTES

Big-Data Bundle Offers Real-Time Insights

SAP has announced integration of Apache Hadoop into real-time data warehousing environ-ments with a new big-data bundle and go-to-market strategy with Cloudera, Hitachi Data Systems, Hortonworks, HP and IBM. The offering is based on the flagship SAP HANA platform and combines the SAP Sybase IQ server, SAP Data Integrator software and SAP BusinessObjects business intelligence solu-tions. It provides a comprehensive data warehousing solution for real-time insights across massive data sets from various sources. Where traditional data-bases once dominated enterprise data warehousing strategies, Hadoop is gaining traction among orga-nizations looking for an efficient and affordable way to store and process ever-increasing data volumes. However, companies struggle to integrate Hadoop with their business analytics environments and refined data warehousing practices. Together, the big-data bundle from SAP and go-to-market part-nerships with Hadoop vendors enable SAP to offer its customers a complete real-time data warehousing strategy that harnesses Hadoop’s potential with the speed of in-memory computing and columnar databases. Bringing together the speed, scale, flex-ibility and affordability needed to fully tap the potential of big data, SAP is offering the following Hadoop-integrated solutions in a single bundle, as well as individually: SAP HANA database; SAP Sybase IQ, a columnar database and enterprise data warehouse database; SAP Data Integrator; and SAP BusinessObjects BI suite.

Army Selects Wireless Network After Next Radios

Rugged Firewall Detects and Prevents Cyber-AttacksThe new Stonesoft MIL-320 Next Generation Firewall/VPN appliance

provides military-grade network security in a rugged go-anywhere unit. Today’s information security is often deployed outside controlled data-centers and other stable environments, but needs to function in extreme conditions. The MIL-320 utilizes Stonesoft’s thorough data stream-based normalization and deep inspection across all protocols and network layers to detect and prevent cyber-attacks, including those delivered by advanced evasion techniques (AET). The MIL-320 appliance packs AET-resistant, high-performance network security into a tough and compact form, certified for high-performance operations in extreme tempera-tures, wet, mud and dust. Each unit is small, heavy duty, resistant to bumps and shocks, and available in black or military green. The MIL-320 is highly portable, quick to configure, and ready for planned or

rapid deployments. MIL-320 offers industry-leading protection against sophisticated attacks and includes a WLAN and ad-hoc mesh network support for resilient, strongly encrypted local communication links and data transfer between deployed units.

Serial-to-Packet Solutions Support Everything-Over-IP Efforts

Cornet Technology’s IPGate-AC and IPGate-AC HD serial-to-packet transport and migration solutions have been tested and certified by the Joint Interoperability Test Command ( JITC) for both system interoperability and information assurance. They are now on the Defense Switched Network approved products list under the fixed network element category. IPGate-AC solutions are designed to simplify the Department of Defense “everything over IP” effort by easing the migration of legacy serial- and circuit-based network applications to packet-based IP networks. By passing JITC testing, the IPGate serial-to-packet solutions offer industry technologically advanced appli-ances that provide greater functionality than the competition. These appliances use the latest emulation technology to encapsulate the TDM traffic into packets as it enters the network and restoring them at the exit point. This technology provides a single device platform to develop a unified communications’ solution.

The Army has selected the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Wireless Network after Next (WNaN) radios to support the Network Integration Evaluation 13.1 experiment. The WNaN team consists of DARPA; Raytheon BBN Technologies, which provides the applications, networking and integration capabilities for this next generation platform; and Cobham Sensor Systems, which provides hard-ware. BBN Technologies is a wholly owned subsidiary of Raytheon. The WNaN radio provides a robust mobile ad hoc network with dynamic spectrum access, disruption tolerant networking, and multiple cooperative transceivers on a compact, handheld platform. These innovative networking technologies allow WNaN radios to operate in dense signal environments without dropping calls, facilitate mission command through the ability to easily set up as many as 128 call groups, and maintain situ-ational awareness even when communications are interrupted. Because the WNaN software is delivered on low cost, commercially available components, WNaN radios can enable soldiers at every operational level to have a reliable communications device.


Compiled by KMi Media Group staff

Rear Admiral Jerry K. Burroughs is a 1981 graduate of North Carolina State University with a degree in mechanical engineer-ing. He received his commission from Officer Candidate School in 1982. Additionally, Burroughs received a Master of Science degree in national resource strategy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces at National Defense University.

Prior to command, Burroughs served at sea aboard USS Nathan Hale, USS Honolulu and USS Finback, deploying to the Western Pacific and Mediterranean, as well as conducting four strategic deter-rent patrols. Ashore he served at the Nuclear Power Training Unit, Ballston Spa, N.Y., CINCLANTFLT Nuclear Propulsion Examining Board in Norfolk, Va., and on the staff of the assistant secretary of the Navy for financial management and comptroller in Washington, D.C.

Burroughs assumed command of USS Albuquerque in December 1999, where he served until June 2002. In command, he deployed to the South Atlantic and conducted a major shipyard maintenance period.

Burroughs’ acquisition assignments include assistant program manager for unmanned undersea vehicles, program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and major program manager for the SOF Undersea Mobility Program. He served as chief engineer for the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command from August 2008 until March 2010.

Burroughs also leads the Navy Program Executive Office Space Systems, reporting directly to the assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition.

Burroughs was interviewed by MIT Editor Harrison Donnelly.

Q: To start off, can you give readers an overview of your commands, their mission and organization?

A: At PEO C4I and PEO Space Systems, we’re responsible for delivering information technology to the fleet, to enable the Navy’s information dominance vision. We’re delivering networking, commu-nications, command and control and intelligence-type systems and applications to the fleet. I have 11 major program managers working for me to develop and integrate that capability.

Q: What is your command doing to prepare for fiscal uncertainty and the prospect of budget austerity in the future?

A: Well, we have an ingrained culture of efficiency and looking for ways to do things more effectively and efficiently, so that will serve us well.

We have a whole team that is chartered to look at continuous process improvement and how we can be more effective in how we do our job. So we’re just going to keep our eye on the ball, making sure we’re spending and allocating our dollars in an effective and efficient man-ner, and we’ll respond to the challenge.

Q: The PEO C4I recently issued its strategic plan for 2013. How would you describe your goals for the year?

A: We have three main goals. The first is to minimize costs while delivering integrated C4I capability, and that’s really looking at total ownership costs of all the systems that we deliver. The second is to rapidly deliver capability to the warfighter. In the IT world, things change very quickly, and so we’re very challenged to make sure we’re delivering capability that stays relevant. Working within the acquisi-tion framework, we’re always looking for ways that we can be more responsive and deliver capability faster to the warfighter. The last one is to make sure that we continue developing our workforce to respond to the challenges of today and achieve excellence in acquisition.

Q: What types of changes in the Navy’s IT acquisition process could contribute to your efforts to minimize costs while delivering integrated capabilities?

Rear Admiral Jerry K. BurroughsProgram Executive Officer for

Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence


C4I CommanderDelivering IT to the Fleet to Enable Information Dominance

Q&AQ&A

A: Our acquisition system goes back a long way, and it’s primarily been developed for large platforms—ships, air-craft, and others that take a long time to develop and build, and stay around for 30 or 40 years. We’re dealing with systems that are generally COTS technology that we’re integrating together and developing applications. That’s something that changes very rapidly. So we have to adapt to that paradigm. There is a realization across the Depart-ment of Defense that the traditional system doesn’t work that well for C4I, and there have been a lot of initiatives undertaken to try to adapt to that. The Rapid IT Acquisi-tion initiative enables us to waive some of the require-ments that really don’t produce good results for an IT system, and that allows us to move faster. So whenever we can, we try to do that, and we’ve had some good success.

Q: What is your command’s role in the Consolidated Afloat Network Enterprise Services [CANES] program, and where does that stand today?

A: CANES is more than a system, it is also a new business model for delivering capability to the fleet. It takes four legacy networks and combines them into one network, allowing us to streamline the support, training and operat-ing procedures. It will also enable us to be more respon-sive. For example, today where we’re fielding systems with hardware, in the future that capability will just be an application that rides on CANES. It’s much faster and cheaper to develop and field applications when the operat-ing environment is already in place.

Fortunately, we’re there, and the future is now. The pro-gram is just coming up on Milestone C, which we hope to get approved soon, and we have our first installation starting in the middle of December, on the USS Milius. That installation will take several months, and we’ll begin operational testing at sea late next year.

There are other significant advantages that I’d like to mention. One is that over time, it will allow us to get all the ships on one stan-dard architecture. Today, we have many different variants of networks out there that present significant supportability and information assurance challenges. The other is that CANES has significant IA capability built into it that we’ve never had before. A third is that CANES is included with a resourced and planned modernization and technical refresh strategy. We looked at that up-front, asked what it takes to sustain and keep these networks viable, and built that into the program. It’s funded as a part of the program, and that’s a huge step forward for the Navy.

Q: What benefits and challenges do you see in the Navy’s efforts to consolidate five SATCOM programs into the Commercial Broadband Satellite Program [CBSP] and Navy Multiband Terminal [NMT] programs?

A: NMT is a very important program for us. It’s been in development for the last several years, and we recently got a full deployment deci-sion to move forward on it. We’re moving out with installations as quickly as we can. The program has done very well, and it’s a good news story for the Navy because it consolidates many of the legacy systems into one terminal. Some of those programs, such as the Super High Frequency satellite terminals, are some of our older and

more troublesome systems from a sustainability perspective. So it’s a large improvement from the sustainment perspective and it also gives the fleet a lot more capability in the area of protected communica-tions and improved bandwidth. So, not only from a capability, but also from an operations and sustainment perspective, NMT is a very important program.

The CBSP is a very successful program as well. The big thing about it is that, as we’ve developed the terminal, we’ve also been able to work on how we lease the commercial satellite capacity. We were able to negotiate a more favorable contract that allows us to buy that capacity much more cheaply than we did in the past. That’s really the big news about CBSP, it’s a great augmenter for the MILSATCOM, and very important for the fleet.

Q: What are some of the key initiatives of your command in the area of information assurance and cybersecurity?

A: It’s tough to pick up a newspaper these days without reading something new in the area of IA and cybersecurity. About three years ago, realizing how big that issue is becoming, we stood up a separate program office, PMW130, which is the Information Assurance and Cybersecurity Program Office, to help us deal more effectively with those issues. They are entirely focused on IA and crypto systems, and are at the pointy end of the spear for us in attacking those issues. It is an area that is rapidly evolving and ramping up in threat level and complexity. It is a challenge for not just my programs, but for every program in the Navy and DoD, to keep up with that threat.

Rear Admiral Burroughs is the Navy’s program executive officer for both C4I and Space Systems. [Photo by Rick Naystatt, audiovisual production specialist, Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command]


We’re focused on it, and we’re trying to work with all of our stakeholders to be more agile and try to stay ahead of the threat. It’s a big resource challenge as well, because many of these threats didn’t even exist a couple of years ago, and we budget many years out. So it’s a tough problem to forecast what the threat is going to be and program the resources needed to respond.

Q: What is the current state of progress on the Mobile User Objective System [MUOS] program?

A: For the last year and a half, I’ve been dual-hatted as PEO Space Systems. The Navy is the DoD executive agent for narrowband satel-lite communications, which is UHF, and the future capability in UHF is MUOS. The system has been under development for quite a few years, but we’re now building the capability. It’s made up of five satellites and four ground stations. The first satellite was launched last February, and is on orbit. Each satellite has both a MUOS capability payload and a legacy UHF payload. That satellite is today provid-ing legacy UHF capability, and we are on schedule to launch our next satellite, MUOS 2, next July. Once we get two satellites and our ground stations up, that is when we can start fielding and testing the MUOS capability. After the second satellite goes up in July, we’ll start getting into operational testing of the capability late next year.

I would add that the program is the satellites and ground stations, but it’s also the terminals, or radios, with the MUOS waveform. That waveform was developed under what was formerly the Joint Program Executive Office-Joint Tactical Radio System, so we have to work very closely with them and the radio developers, which is currently residing under an Army program. MUOS is a very complex system involving a lot of different stakeholders, and the Navy now is in charge of the end-to-end capability. We’re working very closely with all stake-holders to make sure that we deliver that capability on time and on budget. I’m happy to say that the program is progressing well, and I look forward to getting the next satellite up and starting testing.

Q: What do you see as the most innovative current programs in the area of shipboard applications?

A: CANES is certainly the enabler for everything we’re trying to do, because as I mentioned, it provides not only the network capability for routine uses for the ship, but also the platform for many of the applications that we’re fielding, such as command and control and intelligence analysis applications. It’s really a different paradigm for us, to stop fielding hardware and just start building software applica-tions that ride on CANES. That is a significant advance for us.

One of our largest problems here and throughout the fleet is excessive variance or lack of commonality in C4I suites. If you look across the cruiser fleet, for example, there are 22 cruisers with 18 significantly different C4I suites on them. One of our big initiatives is to start building and fielding C4I capability builds that provide a

common, integrated C4I build to every ship that we modernize. It will take time to get there, but over time we’re going to start necking down the variance and get it to a manageable number. That will pay dividends for us in many areas. Not only will it be easier to train sail-ors on how to operate it, but it also will be easier for them to go from one platform to another, because those C4I suites will look largely the same. Our logistics footprint will be significantly reduced, so when we talk about real total ownership cost reduction. If you combine CANES, NMT and the Automated Digital Networking System [ADNS], which is our system for access to the Global Information Grid, those form the core of those capability builds. Not only do you get the improved functionality of the network and the applications that ride on it, but the combination of NMT and ADNS gives you greatly improved bandwidth and protected communications capability.

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

A: It’s a very challenging environment from many perspectives, from information assurance to executing our programs in an uncertain fiscal environment. We’re very focused on keeping our eye on the ball, delivering the maximum capability to the warfighter that we can, and doing so as efficiently as possible. Not only from a C4I, but also from a PEO Space Systems perspective, that’s what we concentrate on every day.

I also want to emphasize that the best thing about my job is the people who work for me. They are all extremely dedicated and profes-sional, and they wake up every day wanting to do great things for the Navy and Marine Corps, and they do that. I’m very proud to lead each and every one of them, and they deserve all the credit for the success that we’ve had. O

Rear Admiral Burroughs with one of the newly received CANES modules currently undergoing operational testing at SPAWAR prior to ship installation. [Photo by Rick Naystatt, audiovisual production specialist, Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command]


Commanders on patrol will no longer have to drive back to a for-ward operating base for an update. Soldiers on foot will more quickly find their friends and enemies.

Through mobile communications technology that connects all echelons of a brigade combat team down to the dismounted soldier, the Army’s new tactical communications network will reduce units’ reliance on fixed infrastructure, extend the range of communications and improve battlefield awareness at the lowest levels.

“This capability changes the equation, and gives us situational awareness where we need to have it and turn it against the enemy,” said Colonel Walter E. Piatt, deputy commanding general for support of the 10th Mountain Division.

Soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team (BCT) at Fort Drum, N.Y., and 4th BCT at Fort Polk, La., were the first to receive the new gear, known as Capability Set (CS) 13, which began fielding in October. The 4th BCT, 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson, Colo., will be the next to get CS 13, starting early in 2013.

This capability set is the first fielded as part of the Army’s new Agile Capabilities Life Cycle Process. Rather than develop network systems independently and on their own timelines, the Army is integrat-ing capabilities up front in government-owned laboratories, having soldiers test-drive them at Network Integration Evaluations (NIEs) and delivering complete capability sets aligned with the Army Force Generation cycle. As one capability set is fielded, the Army, through the NIE, is developing and evaluating the next capability set.

“This is our first attempt at capability set integration, and every set will get better as we go forward,” said Colonel Rob Carpenter, Army director of system of systems integration. “The key is to make sure this equipment is useable, trainable, supportable and sustainable.”

Fielding multiple systems as an integrated communications package that spans the BCT formation has required a new, highly synchronized approach to production, deliveries and training of CS 13 equipment. Both 10th Mountain Division brigades are in the midst of several months of rigorous training, including classroom courses and hands-on experience with the systems. The new equipment train-ing for individual systems will build to collective training with the entire capability set. Classes have been synchronized with the units’ other pre-deployment requirements and exercises, which will begin in spring 2013.

“It’s a challenge, because the network is changing drastically with all the on-the-move capability,” said Mike Valdez, who is overseeing fielding and training for the mobile network backbone, Warfighter Information Network-Tactical Increment 2. “They have to learn to fight the network.”

CS 13 is reaching the field at a critical time. As U.S. forces con-tinue to draw down in Afghanistan, they will turn over many of their forward operating bases and other infrastructure to the local forces,

thus gradually losing fixed network locations. Capability Set 13 systems provide mobile satellite and robust radio capability for commanders and soldiers to take the network with them in vehicles and while dismounted as they conduct security assistance and some combat missions.

“This capability will allow us to remain mobile and will not tie us to fixed facilities,” Piatt said. “Think about what that does operation-ally and tactically. It doesn’t make you predictable. So now you’re not always driving back to the base at night or a given time.”

At lower echelons, the package includes software-defined net-working radios and smartphone-like Nett Warrior devices that allow dismounted leaders to exchange messages and digitally track one another’s locations—the kind of information that previously was only available inside vehicles or command posts.

“When I was a battalion commander in Iraq back in 2009, the capabilities I had in my battalion tactical operations center, we now are putting down at the soldier level, and I think that’s extremely power-ful,” said Colonel Sam Whitehurst, 3rd BCT commander.

Capability Set 13 was validated through the NIEs, semi-annual field exercises in which an operational BCT evaluates network sys-tems by executing realistic mission threads in the punishing terrain of White Sands Missile Range, N.M. NIEs have not only allowed for soldier-driven evaluations and assessments of network technologies, they have also aided the Army in development of tactics, techniques and procedures for using Capability Set 13 as a holistic network.

Training best practices for CS 13 systems, both individually and as an integrated set, were also developed through the NIE. The training is designed not just to make soldiers proficient on the systems within their individual specialties, but also to understand how those systems fit in with the rest of the brigade network structure.

That is a change from the last decade of war, when the Army provided network capabilities in response to urgent needs, but did not always have the infrastructure and processes in place to support them. That left soldiers to figure out how they worked and how they integrated with the rest of their equipment. The NIE is designed to perform the integration and establish proper training up front. Many of the training personnel involved in the NIEs, who are now familiar with how to build training for a collective package of systems, are now training units on CS 13.

“We’re not just throwing individual good ideas at units,” Piatt said. “So this is the right approach.” O

Claire Heininger is a staff writer for Symbolic Systems, supporting the Army.



tactical network will reduce reliance on fixed infraStructure, extend communicationS and imProve battlefield awareneSS.

by claire heininger

Army Rolls OutNew Network Approach


As the only truly global armed force on the planet, capable of projecting force to the farthest reaches of the planet in a matter of hours, the U.S. military occupies a unique position. This reach, however, comes with the necessity of maintaining operational bases and military installations across an international plane, both in and out of combat theater.

This far-flung nature also means that more than ever, effective, clear communications are vital to the continuance of operations. Orders may originate from the United States, meaning in the case of the Army that lines must be kept open between units in theater and Army Forces Central Command (ARCENT).

In 2002, with U.S. action in Afghanistan pick-ing up pace, the Army needed an updated means of transmission for both data and voice communications, ultimately choosing to employ fully “unified communications” for tactical units, meaning that both data and voice would share the same network infrastruc-ture. Thus, work started on the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T) project.

The Project Manager for WIN-T aimed to provide Army units with pre-built, seamless communications technol-

ogy and services. Essentially, PM WIN-T was to provide pre-packaged information technology delivered in a way that a warfighter unit could easily communicate with other units and higher echelons without needing complicated infrastruc-ture for both voice and data. This mission effectively positioned the WIN-T program as the Army’s in-theater communications service provider.

One of the key services PM WIN-T provides to warfighter units is voice-over-IP (VoIP), a protocol that transmits voice communications over IP data lines as opposed to analog, copper cables. VoIP is stateless, making it highly effective for units deep

within rough terrain, where finding access to a wired connection is all but impossible.

Being “stateless,” however, also means that call quality can be quite poor if network issues occur during the call. If VoIP packets are lost, they are not re-sent (like e-mail), but rather lost forever, with the listener not hearing the full transmission.

voiP’S challengeS cannot be ignored, and militant attention muSt be Paid to the quality and efficiency of every call.

by Sanjay caStelino

Sanjay Castelino


If enough packets are lost, the human listener will perceive the call quality as very poor, with the call itself being nothing more than static.

Nearly every phone call made in theater by Army units is conducted via a VoIP phone line through PM WIN-T, including high command meetings, situation reports, logistics coordina-tion and tactical updates, which highlights the technology’s importance to continued operations. In fact, this reliance on VoIP (of which the Army was an early adopter, with 2002 being the early days of the service) has led to many network enhance-ments and improvements by the Army, from network hardening to virtualization, all to improve quality of phone calls.

With all this in mind, VoIP is still an imperfect animal at best. While the flexibility and scalability it provides to the Army is unmatched by other forms of communication, hiccups are still common, especially when it comes to quality. Poor VoIP quality could mean stuttering, echoes or static, and can lead to misunderstood orders or lost tactical information, which in-theater can mean the lives of warfighters and civilians are at stake.

These problems are exacerbated by the massive demand for data by today’s military operations. As VoIP shares the same “pipe” as data transfers, file transmissions can greatly impact VoIP quality and even remove the capability to make a VoIP call in the first place, especially when looking at the network

constraints of deployed warfighter units. This is especially important for the most forward deployed units, as they gen-erally rely more on relatively slow satellite uplink/downlink technology.

For example, a unit in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, is preparing for a conference call with ARCENT and attempts to send through a large PowerPoint presentation right before the call. While innocuous enough stateside, this file transmission (which is likely several megabytes) could dramatically impact the quality of the ensuing conference call, primarily because while even remote warfighter units are “networked,” their actual connectivity is quite low, sometimes barely more than a 56k modem provides.

This limited bandwidth means that IT priorities need to be set. But does this mean that VoIP and file transfers cannot live side-by-side?

the tactical Solution

The answer to ensuring high VoIP quality in-theater already exists, although in an underutilized fashion. Internet Protocol has a built-in “preference” standard—essentially a flag that, when activated, determines what packets of information need to be transmitted before anything else. It’s these packets of infor-mation, or rather their loss, that cause jittery and static-filled

MIT 16.11 | 21www.MIT-kmi.com

VoIP calls. Lost packets mean seconds-long delays or even dropped calls in the world of VoIP.

To ensure that these packets are not lost and are received in the proper order with minimal delay, Qual-ity of Service (QoS) proto-cols need to be implemented and observed. QoS simply ensures that high-priority packets are transferred over a network connection first. Voice packets are considered high priority, as lost/late packets can greatly affect service quality, while email and file transfers are lower priority, as a lost/late packet is easily rectified automati-cally by the “stateful” TCP protocol.

Activating QoS is a two-step process at minimum: First, it’s essentially a soft-switch or option that needs to be turned in most net-working equipment, primarily routers that link directly to the slowest (usually satellite) links. Secondly, the VoIP packets them-selves need to be specially marked to have higher priority.

For warfighter units in the field, this means that networking gear being used at critical bandwidth bottlenecks must have this option activated to ensure that VoIP packets stay in the proper sequence with minimal delay for reception. While emails and file transfers will be delayed when there is congestion, VoIP calls should be crystal clear—at least in theory, assuming that all con-gested links are configured properly and all the VoIP UDP packets are marked with the appropriate priority

In truth, deployed units should do more than simply flip a switch on their networking gear. To truly ensure that VoIP prob-lems never become detrimental to the mission, a VoIP monitoring system needs to be implemented. This can take many forms, from solutions included with networking equipment (like that provided by Cisco) to third-party technologies that are essentially “hard-ware agnostic.”

Regardless of the actual solution, all of these monitoring technologies should be able to track VoIP calls made and allow IT teams, whether on the warfighter side or for PM WIN-T analysis after the fact, to determine the quality of each call. The right tool will let IT administrators see packet loss and latency numbers and pinpoint which calls may have had problems during the exchange. With these numbers in hand, military IT teams can then trouble-shoot to determine why a call went bad or where “clusters” of poor quality VoIP calls are happening

In addition, VoIP monitoring should include automated peri-odic validating that the QoS settings on the critical routers are configured properly, as well as automatic notification if they are changed from the proper settings. The final monitoring should

validate that the VoIP packets are “marked” with the appropriate priority level, and that other less sensitive application packets are marked with the appropriate QoS level.

Beyond just helping with call quality, monitoring VoIP can also help pick up wider-ranging network problems, which can be a way to avoid major challenges for last-mile deployments to in-theater units. For example, if VoIP calls are experiencing serious latency or jitter, it could be indicative of failing equipment or a bad satel-lite relay. IT administrators can then take this information and use other tools to drill down deeper to find the real problem, allowing VoIP to act almost as a “canary in the coal mine” when it comes to network problems.

For the foreseeable future, VoIP will remain the communica-tions protocol of choice for the Army, not to mention the other branches of the military. The flexibility it provides through simpli-fied equipment and a single pipe for data and voice means that in-theater units will need far less training and equipment when it comes to establishing a comms infrastructure.

But VoIP’s challenges cannot be ignored, and militant atten-tion must be paid to the quality and efficiency of every call. Failing to spot a pattern of call trouble could not only lead to an annoyed high command, but also potentially misunderstood orders: a dan-gerous result for deployed forces in today’s world. O

Sanjay Castelino is vice president of SolarWinds.



Two monitors sit in the 2nd Marine Logistics Group (Forward) conference room, where Staff Sgt. Derek A. Smoak, a tactical vehicle license examiner, was promoted Feb. 1, 2012, aboard Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan. The monitors along with a web camera were used to allow his wife, Michelle L. Smoak, to witness her husband’s promotion and award ceremony through a teleconference call.


How do you see JITC’s role changing in the era of cyberspace?

I see JITC’s role expanding to provide more support to the

Global Information Grid [GIG] and Joint Information Environment

[JIE]. DISA has an urgent and continuing requirement to field

cyberspace defense systems and capabilities to ensure they pro-

tect, detect, diagnose, react and recover capabilities to ensure our

war fighting mission. As such, it is integral to DISA’s mission to

create a cyberspace test and evaluation capability that will become

the standard for testing the resiliency of cyberspace defense pro-

grams’ response to hostile action and serve as a crucial part of the

risk management process to improve the GIG and JIE. Our JITC

team is currently working on a cyberspace test and evaluation

[T&E] methodology that will lead the way into this new era.

What are the biggest challenges facing JITC as DoD shifts from proprietary programs of record to IP-based technology from the commercial world?

We see the two biggest challenges for JITC as establishing a

comprehensive test and evaluation strategy that addresses the

security requirements of operating in an IP-based transport

architecture, and maintaining the availability and assured ser-

vice requirements of the traditional programs of record that we

all were used to in the past. Proprietary or legacy systems were

point to point, and easier to control, secure and manage. Under

a pure IP construct, where everything is essentially connected to

everything, the requirements of the DoD security architecture are

sometimes challenging for the commercial vendors and the test

community.

The move to IP-based transport also introduces some signifi-

cant availability issues, in particular for applications or capabili-

ties that require real-time or near-real-time delivery. We’re used to

push-to-talk: You squeeze the handset, and your message is get-

ting through. Now, when it’s over IP, you’re competing with other

packets on the network. By the nature of IP networks, delivering

high quality voice, video and data across a heterogeneous network,

owned and managed by various services and agencies, is very

challenging. That makes our efforts under the DoD CIO’s Unified

Capability [UC] program that much more critical. The UC program

established the appropriate requirements and standards for com-

mercial products that provide assured services, and ensure that

those products meet the information assurance and interoperability

cyberSecurity iSSueS, mobile deviceS and dod Shift to iP-baSed SyStemS PoSe new challengeS, SayS jitc commander.

(Editor’s Note: The mission of the Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC), an arm of the

Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), is to professionally test, operationally evaluate

and certify information technology capabilities for joint interoperability. During an installation

ceremony last summer for Army Colonel Douglas J. Orsi, who became the 10th commander

of JITC since its founding in 1989, DISA Director Lieutenant General Ronnie D. Hawkins Jr.

underscored the important role that JITC must assume as the Department of Defense embraces

cyberspace. “Cyberspace has now become that next final frontier,” said Hawkins. “The orga-

nization that is going to make sure we bring together all of our capabilities and we’re able to

operate in a cogent fashion, it’s JITC.” In a recent interview, Orsi reflected on the changing role

of JITC. Following are his remarks.)

Test Command Meets Cyber-Era

Col. Douglas J. Orsi


requirements of DoD before being available for procurement through

the UC Approved Product List. We definitely see this as an area that

is challenging, and we’re going to meet that challenge with our team

of professionals.

What are some of the unique issues involved in testing and evaluating mobile devices, and how are you addressing them?

Mobility devices and services are a very high priority for

DISA and DoD. If you look around, every service and combatant

command has a mobility pilot, because everyone is interested in

mobility. We have to be able to capitalize on the capability and

flexibility of operating in a mobile environment, and make that

available to the warfighter and the institutional user. Mobile tech-

nology is a huge game-changer for DoD. The issue we face as a

test community is to understand the functional requirements of

the end-user and ensure that those capabilities are still available

after the appropriate security measures are implemented. The risk

of having government data on mobile devices brings up security

issues that aren’t addressed in the commercial world. The mobile

device is really an extension of the DISN network, and therefore

inherits all the security requirements of data-at-rest, desktop man-

agement, user authentication and other issues that traditional

PCs have to meet today when we log on a machine on a DoD

network.

As test professionals, JITC needs to understand the functional

requirements and appropriate use cases and develop an overarch-

ing strategy that validates that the mobile services provided by DoD

are meeting those needs of the user. JITC is working with the DISA

mobility program manager, the DoD CIO and the different services

and agencies to understand their device requirements, the required

support architecture, the applications and the enterprise services

that are expected by the community. We definitely realize that we’re

moving in this direction, and JITC is getting out in front of mobility

to make sure we have a good strategy to test and evaluate these

products.

What role do security and IA capabilities play in your testing and evaluation programs?

We’re involved with security and IA in all our testing, and

security and IA capabilities play a significant role in JITC’s mis-

sion. It’s imperative that IA and computer network defense are

addressed early and adequately through the system development

cycle in testing, to ensure that our warfighters can fight and win in

a contest cyberspace domain. All DoD systems and programs that

depend on external information sources, or that provide informa-

tion to other DoD systems, are assessed in a representative con-

tested environment that reflects the real world threat, to ensure we

field capabilities to our warfighters that enables them to achieve

and maintain dominance in cyberspace. JITC’s current operational

test and evaluation process includes systems and network oper-

ated by representative users, operators and systems and network

administrators to ensure that we test all systems in regards to IA

and security.

Are there any new testing and evaluation technologies or methodologies that are changing how JITC does business?

We are constantly evaluating how we do business, and how

we get in front of new technologies to make sure we’re testing and

evaluating them correctly. As I mentioned, our JITC team is currently

developing a cyberspace T&E methodology that will lead the way

in supporting the GIG and JIE. JITC has identified challenges to the

implementation and assessment framework and assessment capa-

bilities in that area. Our cyberspace T&E methodology will address

test and evaluation at all layers. Currently, T&E methods are effective

at assessing a specific system and its functionality. But the cyber

methods are less mature, and our enhancement is being developed

to increase effectiveness as we move up the layered stack to evalu-

ate higher order capabilities such as effectiveness and suitability in

situational awareness and critical information requirements.

The areas that we are addressing are process, people, technol-

ogy and infrastructure. The goal of the cyberspace T&E methodology


is to develop a test framework and action plan that addresses the

previously mentioned challenges in cyberspace testing and assess-

ment. The methodology and resulting T&E capability that we’re

focusing on will address critical operational issues associated with

cyberspace. In the area of cyber or mobility, we need to make sure

we understand the battlefield environment and come up with a meth-

odology that fits and is useful when we conduct test and evaluation.

How do you see your mission and resources changing as operations in Afghanistan wind down and budgets tighten?

In regards to our mission, I see expansion of our role in sup-

porting coalition interoperability. One of the results stemming from

operations in Afghanistan over the last 10-plus years has been our

work on the Afghan Mission Network in support of USCENTCOM.

Interoperability with partner nations has been critical in fighting a

war in a coalition environment. The interoperability test and evalua-

tion work by our Coalition Interoperability Assurance and Validation

team has taught us a great deal, and we’re using that knowledge

and expertise to support the next effort to develop T&E strategies

and tools to support development of a Future Mission Network,

which will be the follow-on coalition command and control frame-

work after our mission in Afghanistan is done.

In regards to your question about the tightening of budgets,

we’re focused at JITC on being good stewards of our resources,

and continue to focus on leveraging new technologies and tech-

niques to make testing more efficient and less costly. We’re always

looking for more effective ways of testing, including automated test-

ing, which speeds up certifications and evaluations and is more cost

effective for our customers. A good example of this is our recent

work with USTRANSCOM, in supporting testing and certification of

their Agile Transportation for the 21st Century program. By getting

involved early in the planning cycle and having good communica-

tions and teamwork with them, we’re able to create an agile process

with USTRANSCOM, speeding up interoperability certification and

ultimately saving the program more than $3 million, which is our

goal. We want to get involved early, make testing quicker, and ulti-

mately save the program money.

What changes would you like to see in JITC’s relationship with industry? How do you respond to those who say the cost and time involved in testing is burdensome for companies, especially those that are small or new?

JITC works very closely with commercial vendors, especially

those that participate in the Unified Capabilities certification efforts.

We’ve seen demonstrated successes as we’ve worked as partners in

delivering products to the warfighter. There is a clear understanding

and commitment for delivering commercial capabilities and qual-

ity products to the end customer, from both the vendor and test

community. The bottom line is that a substandard product or an

extremely lengthy testing process serve no one, and are ultimately

a disservice to the warfighter who needs that capability now, not six

months from now. JITC wants to continue our partnership in the UC

environment and extend that to other areas in our mission space.

The vendor relationship is critical in establishing our trust in the prod-

uct and the trust in the testing process that certifies it.

In response to the time and cost of testing, I’d ask vendors,

especially small and new companies, to engage JITC and establish

a relationship. Engaging earlier in testing and understanding the

requirements of the process ultimately helps the warfighter. The pro-

cess doesn’t have to be long and costly if there’s a demonstrated

need, the expectations and requirements are understood, and the

products are ready to meet the established IA and interoperability

requirements. IT and national security systems need to be interoper-

able, and if you involve testers early in the process, you’ll improve a

program’s cost, schedule and performance in the long run.

Are there any other initiatives and programs underway at JITC that you’d like readers to be more aware of?

We’ve been talking about the JIE, so I’d like to add more about

that. We’re working closely with DISA’s Joint Information Environ-

ment Technical Synchronization Office [JTSO], an effort led by

Brigadier General Frederick A. Henry, the DISA chief of staff. We’re

providing our T&E expertise to help develop a JTSO test and evalu-

ation strategy in support of the JIE. This is another area where

our focus is on creating an overarching T&E approach where we’ll

address a broad range of measures that help assess security,

performance and operational effectiveness of the JIE, including

baselining existing architectures and approaches. That’s important,

because JIE is a DoD effort, and DISA is a key player. O

Senior leaders from U.S., Australian, British and Canadian defense organizations receive a briefing at the ground terminal station of the Distributed Common Ground Systems-Army, during the Joint Interoperability Test Command-sponsored visitor day at the Enterprise Challenge 2012 exercise held in August at the JITC test site. [Photo courtesy of DoD]




Curtiss-Wright Controls Defense Solutions has begun shipping an enhanced version of its MPMC-9335 multi-platform mission computer (MPMC). The MPMC-9335 is the latest member of Curtiss-Wright’s extensive family of fully integrated COTS, highly rugged, fully integrated and qualified MPMC subsystems. With its latest generation quad-core Intel Core i7 single board computer and 240-core NVIDIA Fermi GPGPU, the rugged MPMC-9335 is especially well-suited for demanding compute intensive applications such as image, data and radar processing. The enhanced MPMC-9335 3-slot rugged VPX system now supports an extended operating temperature range, with intermittent operation rated at up to 71 C and continuous operation at 65 C baseplate temperatures. This MPMC is designed to be easily and quickly configured to meet the demanding requirements of defense, aerospace and law enforcement applications. The compact and lightweight small form factor subsystem is ideal for space/weight/power-constrained platforms such as UAVs and ground vehicles.

Compiled by KMi Media Group staffCOTSACOPIA Commercial Off - the - Shelf Technology

Rugged Notebook Offers Improved CPU Performance

Getac has upgraded its B300 rugged notebook computer with faster processors, improved graphics and increased storage. Beginning with speed and performance, Getac offers a third genera-tion 2.6 GHz Intel Core i5-3320M (MAX 3.3) or 2.9 GHz Core i7-3520M (MAX 3.6) processor to improve CPU performance by up to 67 percent and nearly double the graphic performance. In addition, the B300 now comes standard with a 500GB hard drive and offers solid-state drive storage up to 256GB. For field workers and military personnel, this translates into greater productivity with a system designed to work in the most extreme working conditions.

Backpack Cellular Solution Enables Smart Apps at the Edge

Harris has introduced a backpack version of its KnightHawk mobile tactical cellular network solution that provides warfighters with high-bandwidth connectivity and enables the use of smart apps at the tactical edge of the battlefield. The KnightLite system is built upon Universal Mobile Telecommunications System technology, which leverages mature cellular technology and helps ensure cost-effective deployment. In addition to voice, high-speed data, video and SMS messaging, the KnightLite system supports High-Speed Packet Access, which allows for dynamic allocation of data resources to mobile devices and efficiently utilizes bandwidth to allow more devices to access the network simultaneously. It is compatible with COTS smartphones and tablets. KnightLite can operate autonomously or as a scalable network for increased coverage. The combination of inexpensive COTS smartphones and tablets along with simultaneous high-bandwidth access for multiple users helps keep warfighters safe and on-task, minimizes loss of life, and enhances mission effectiveness and success.

Portfolio Helps Configure and Deploy Big-Data Systems

To address the need for configuring and deploying big-data systems, HP has expanded its HP AppSystems portfolio to offer improved customer choice and expanded capabilities of HP Converged Infrastructure with Apache Hadoop, HP Vertica Analytics Platform and Autonomy eDis-covery environments. Elements of the portfolio include HP Proactive Care for SAP, which optimizes an infrastructure running SAP solu-tions, enabling faster analysis of large amounts of data; the newly enhanced HP Converged Storage portfolio, which eliminates adminis-trative complexity, reduces costs and accelerates information insight in virtualized, cloud and big-data environments; and the HP Vertica Analytics Platform 6.1, a next-generation analytics platform, purpose built to optimize big data, which enables enterprises to optimize and monetize big data with analytics packs, performance enhancements, enhanced integration with Hadoop and simplified Amazon EC2 cloud deployments—all at hyperspeed and massive scale.

Multi-Platform Computer Tackles Demanding Applications


aDVertisers inDex

Adobe/Carahsoft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C4http://events.carahsoft.com/event-detail/2131/MIT/CSSS.net . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11www.csss.net

LogRhythm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5www.logrhythm.com/federalUniversity of Maryland University College . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C2http://military.umuc.edu/servesyou

calenDarJanuary 29-31, 2013AFCEA WestSan Diego, Calif.www.afcea.org

February 5-7, 2013Cyberspace 2013Colorado Springs, Colo.www.afceacyberspace.com

February 20-22, 2013AUSA Winter SymposiumFort Lauderdale, Fla.www.ausa.orga

February 25-March 1, 2013RSA ConferenceSan Francisco, Calif.www.rsaconference.com

March 4-7, 2013Joint Interoperability ConferenceTucson, Ariz.www.afcea-southaz.org

March 18-21, 2013Satellite 2013Washington, D.C.www.satellitetoday.com

April 8-10, 2012Sea-Air-Space ExpoNational Harbor, Md.www.seaairspace.org

May 14-16, 2013FOSEWashington, D.C.www.fose.com

the

adve

rtise

rs in

dex

is p

rovi

ded

as a

ser

vice

to o

ur re

ader

s. K

Mi c

anno

t be

held

resp

onsi

ble

for d

iscr

epan

cies

due

to la

st-m

inut

e ch

ange

s or

alte

ratio

ns.

MIT RESOURCE CENTER


Dinah Gueldenpfennig Weisberg holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Buffalo, a master’s degree in software development and management and an Executive MBA from the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Q: What types of products and services are you offering to military and other govern-ment customers?

A: REDCOM Laboratories Inc. has been in business for nearly 35 years as a manu-facturer of flexible, interoperable, rugge-dized communications equipment. We offer several products on a few core platforms, which are designed to allow the customer to customize and evolve the switches over a period of time as their needs change. Our fully interoperable systems based on the TRANSIP technology enable migration from legacy protocols to full Assured Services-SIP [AS-SIP] communication, interoperable with radio protocols as well as unique secure conferencing capabilities.

Q: What unique benefits does your company provide its customers in comparison with other companies in your field?

A: REDCOM’s philosophy is unique in that we strive to prevent product obsolescence whenever possible. This means there is no mandated software upgrade [outside of any Department of Defense requirements] that must be enabled for continued customer support. We have switches in commer-cial applications [which also happen to be installed in environmentally hostile loca-tions] that have been in service for over 25 years, and we still support them. The aim is for reliability, then the flexibility to grow the system and upgrade when desired, but not force the customer to do so.

An HDX-based military installation can have been preliminarily configured with leg-acy protocol interfaces, and as DoD mandates that the users must migrate to the latest Uni-fied Communications-compliant technology such as AS-SIP, that can be done with the

addition of some interfaces and additional software. But it does not require a complete system replacement, or a “rip and replace.” This means the government’s investment in the communications for either strategic or tactical applications is protected.

Another key point is that we do not require the payment of ongoing licensing fees, nor do we require maintenance con-tracts. The customer always has the option of structuring purchases in that manner, but it is up to them to decide how to allocate expenditures between capital and opera-tional expenditures.

Say, for example, that a DoD agency wishes to purchase switches such as our SLICE 2100 with 1,000 IP subscribers and several additional interfaces for interoper-ability. The IP subscribers are a one-time purchase. There is no annual or ongoing licensing fee required to be able to continue using them, and there is no requirement for them to upgrade every two years to be able to receive continued support. Our hardware platforms have a long lifespan in terms of being able to support software upgrades, so it is unlikely that a software version upgrade would require a completely new hardware platform, unless it is the rollout of a com-pletely new product

Moreover, because the product platforms are so stable, and due to the size and flex-ibility of the organization, REDCOM can respond quickly to develop additional fea-tures without detriment to the existing features and functions.

We believe these are the attributes that make our products extremely beneficial to the customer in terms of total cost of owner-ship. In this day of cost-cutting, this is going

to be something the government will be looking at very closely.

Q: What are some of the most significant programs your company is currently work-ing on with the military?

A: REDCOM systems provide core voice communications capability for the Air Force TDC ICAP program, the Marine JECCS, DTC and TSM communications systems, and many other communica-tions programs. REDCOM systems provide secure conferencing systems and networks, and act as secure gateways between non-secure systems, such as the DSN, and secure networks, including strategic and deployed radio networks. These radio nets may be tactical ground radio, single chan-nel SATCOM, HF nets, land mobile radio and many more. Virtually all military and commercial voice capable radios can be connected to REDCOM systems. REDCOM systems are frequently used in high profile black-ops networks, and are often referred to as the “glue that binds other networks together.”

Q: How are you working to strengthen the security of your solutions?

A: Every version we bring out, whether it is a feature enhancement or an upgrade to meet new requirements, must go through the Joint Interoperability Test Command for interoperability and information assur-ance validation. Because of the nature of our internal software, it has never been compromised. We intend to keep it that way.

Q: Are you currently developing new products and services relevant to military and government customers that you hope to bring to the market in the future?

A: We are constantly looking ahead to prepare to meet upcoming requirements, whether they be a Defense Information Systems Agency mandate or a customer’s desired feature. O

Dinah Gueldenpfennig WeisbergExecutive Vice President and Vice President of Planning

and Government Program AdministrationREDCOM Laboratories

INDUSTRY INTERVIEW Military Information Technology


For more information, contact MIT Editor Harrison Donnelly at [email protected]

or search our online archives for related stories at www.mit-kmi.com.

For more information, contact MIT Editor Harrison Donnelly at [email protected]

or search our online archives for related stories at www.mit-kmi.com.

Cover and In-Depth Interview with:

Insertion Order Deadline: January 15, 2013 | Ad Materials Deadline: January 22, 2013

February 2013Volume 17, Issue 1

NEXTISSUE

Vice Adm.Michael S. Rogers Commander, U.S. Fleet Cyber CommandCommander, U.S. 10th Fleet

Bonus Distribution:Cyberspace Conference 2013Colorado Springs, Colo.February 5-7, 2013

Mobile Device ManagementAs military users eagerly adopt mobile technology, the department of defense is seeking mobile device management software and an enterprise mobile application store capable of supporting more than a quarter-million devices.

Data Center ConsolidationAs the military moves ahead with mandated data center consolidation, industry is offering a host of products and services to help it do so.

Enterprise Emailon the eve of completion of the Army’s migration to dod Enterprise Email, defense information Systems Agency officials are looking ahead to expansion to other users and enhancement of services.

Army Capability SetsAfter extensive training and testing exercises this fall, Army officials and industry are examining the performance of new and future communications and networking packages known as capability sets.

DoD Timekeeperthe precise time and time interval information provided by the U.S. Naval observatory plays a critical role in dod information technology, geospatial and other programs.

Features:

h�ps://www.dco.dod.mil/

DCO FOR VIRTUAL CONFERENCES

Adobe, the Adobe logo, and Connect are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2012 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.

/DefenseConnectOnline @DCOGroup

Can't conduct a conference or travel to one? Learn how to use DCO for virtual conferences. Current travel budgets and DoD level guidance limit physical conferences. Join us for a complimentary webinar that will explain how to run a conference virtually, covering promotion and marketing, to community of interest formation & pre-learning, to live events, to continuous learning and follow-up.

A�end this FREE one-hour webinar on February 14 at 2:00pm ET! REGISTER NOW: h�p://events.carahso�.com/event-detail/2131/MIT/

DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE MISSING? A�end a free one-hour training on February 7th at 2:00pm ET to learn what DCO is and how it can make your collaboration more e�ective.REGISTER NOW: events.carahso�.com/event-detail/2131/MIT/

DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE MISSING? A�end a free one-hour training on February 7th at 2:00pm ET to learn what DCO is and how it can make your collaboration more e�ective.REGISTER NOW: events.carahso�.com/event-detail/2131/MIT/

C

M

Y

CM

MY

CY

CMY

K

ADO_Ad_Govt_8.5x11_DCO_Virtual_Conf_Webcast_HR_print.pdf 1 12/27/12 3:41 PM

Documents

MIT 16-11 (Dec. 2012)