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DISA Sees the Light on Li-Fi

The agency director touts the benefits of light fidelity over conventional networking.

Lt. Gen. Alan Lynn, USA, DISA director, addresses an AFCEA chapter event. Gen. Lynn and other DISA officials provided a forecast of contracting opportunities to industry on November 6.

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) is touting the potential benefits of light fidelity (Li-Fi) technology, a form of wireless, light-based communications. Li-Fi is expected to be more resistant to electronic signature detectors and therefore, less susceptible to electronic warfare techniques.

Lt. Gen. Alan Lynn, USA, the DISA director, stressed the need for the technology during the agency’s November 6 forecast to industry.

He also emphasized the need for software-defined networking, which Gen. Lynn said is inexpensive and versatile. He described a scenario in which warfighters will be able to hop from one network to the next, similar to radios that hop from one frequency to another.

Software-defined networking also will allow warfighters to create an “all new type of international networking” for whichever allies or partners show up to a fight.

The agency laid out a wide array of contracting opportunities, including an Inline Intrusion Prevention System, which will support the Joint Regional Security Stacks by analyzing incoming traffic flows and performing predetermined automated actions to deter authorized access. The contract is expected to be awarded in the second quarter of the 2018 fiscal year.

Other opportunities include the Defense Industrial Base Network (DIBNet) development and sustainment. The system allows the sharing of cybersecurity threat information between the Defense Department and industry.

In addition, the agency expects to award a contract in early fiscal 2019 for Department of Defense Cyber Situational Awareness Analytics. The contract will provide for the development and integration of new analytics and the sustainment of existing analytics. It also will provide support integration of third party analytics.

Army Col. Bryan Lyttle, the agency’s program executive officer for cyber, said the Acropolis contract, formerly known as Centaur, is probably the largest being offered from his office. Without giving a price tag, he described it as a “fairly large” and added that it is a contract to design, develop and support the agency’s large set of data warehousing capabilities.

“We’re looking for some innovation within the contract to help bring down operating expenses because it’s a fairly big, heavy lift in a couple of different locations worldwide,” Col. Lyttle said. “But also with the engineering and development on all the things that go in there, there’s a lot of data feeds, there’s a lot of software development, in addition to all the hardware pieces that have to be integrated together.”

The Acropolis contract will provide technical, engineering, operational, sustainment and management functions to support day-to-day operations and maintenance on all hardware, processes, applications, databases, networks, sensors and sensor feeds, and analytical tools and capabilities included in the Centaur Operations mission. The agency will award a single contract in the second quarter of next year.

The colonel also highlighted the Cyber NetOps Develop, Deploy Support (CNODDS) contract, which will deliver new and enhanced cyber network operations capabilities while also sustaining those already deployed. It will be awarded in the second quarter of 2018.

For briefing slides from the event, visit: http://www.disa.mil/NewsandEvents/Events/Forecast-to-Industry-2017/Briefings