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GCN Home > 08/30/04 issue

Net-centric approach creates a software challenge

By Joab Jackson, GCN Staff

Researchers say breadth of Defense operations poses scalability problem

As the Defense Department gears its networks for greater use, its software needs also are changing. Not only will programs need to operate over a network, they must be more nimble, able to be configured quickly to interact with each other and meet the needs of new missions.

At a recent research-oriented workshop in Annapolis, Md., Richard Hale, engineering technical director for the Defense Information Systems Agency, sketched out how DOD wants to run its networks of the future—namely, as a single entity.

The DOD University Research Initiative Workshop gave Defense-funded researchers a chance to get together, compare notes and understand what DOD will be looking for in IT.

Researchers admitted that the network-centric approach will pose new challenges for software developers, especially as more sensor networks and other massively distributed heterogeneous networks come online.

“We have solutions in our labs, but they don’t scale up,” said Jeannette Wing of Carnegie Mellon University.

A single entity

DOD will consolidate its networks under a single architecture, making use of the Internet wherever possible, Hale said. Today, the agency maintains the Secret IP Router Network for classified communications, the Non-Classified IP Router Network and the public Internet for unclassified information, and the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System for top-secret information. Eventually, the agency wants to merge all of them into a single entity.

Instead of maintaining separate networks for separate missions, it would be simpler and less expensive to use software to separate the layers of service, Hale said.

For instance, state-of-the-art encryption, such as the National Security Agency’s emerging High Assurance Internet Protocol Encryption standard, could secure communications, Hale said. The use of multiprotocol label switching, multiservice provisioning and IP Version 6 protocols also would help prioritize data traffic.

Such a merging of networks would allow Defense to better share applications and data, Hale said. The agency has been moving toward applications that can be “loosely coupled,” allowing agencies to draw on services from each other on an ad hoc basis. To this end, DISA’s Net-Centric Enterprise Services will offer a set of core applications, such as collaboration, messaging, storage and authentication, that can be used by all military offices.

Yet, as DISA moves toward this dynamic approach, it is finding that today’s software is too brittle to work with these expanding needs, Hale told the audience. Today’s software is set up to work one way. Reconfiguration is burdensome.

More news on related topics: Business Process Management, Content / Record Management, Defense IT, IT Infrastructure, Management



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