Search

"Smart Defence" is a NATO concept and policy that involves national burden-sharing on a broad range of developments, including information technology and cybersecurity. The European Union has a parallel initiative called Pooling and Sharing, and it similarly is aimed at sharing the cost of critical infrastructure. All of this, of course, is driven by the need to modernize, coupled with the global economic crisis, which has reduced defense and security budgets dramatically.

Cloud, mobility and consolidation are growing in importance within the military information technology community and for its private-industry partners. Lt. Gen. Ronnie D. Hawkins, USAF, director, Defense Information Systems Agency, spoke about his organization’s efforts in those areas such as a major project migrating defense network users to an enterprise email system. In 18 months, 390,000 U.S. Army personnel have made the transition.

Rotorcraft are following the flight path of their fixed-wing counterparts as the U.S. Army advances a program to digitize controls.

Researchers at the Communications Research Centre Canada have proved the feasibility of running public-safety Joint Tactical Radio Network Software Communications Architecture on mobile devices. They successfully accessed three different first-responder frequencies with less modification and effort than expected.

The wind-down of U.S. Army combat operations, along with the re-balance in national military priority toward the Asia-Pacific region, is forcing a shift as well as a surge in Army networking. The service must continue to modernize the network to meet growing capability demands, but it also must adapt its architecture to accommodate major changes in force deployments and missions.

When the U.S. Joint Forces Command was disestablished nearly a year ago, transitioning its network proved more complicated than just flipping a switch—or even what was anticipated in various scenarios. Experts found that the nature of the command’s disestablishment brought to light significant incompatibilities in Defense Department networks.

The Free World’s militaries are entering a period of retrenchment just as adversaries are developing new and deadly threats to challenge Western national security. These new threats, many of which are based on the same technologies that have empowered modern defense forces, have the potential to imperil entire nations. Countering them will tax the capabilities of military forces that already are facing reductions in capabilities and size because of severe budget cuts imposed by the global financial crisis.

A 3-D imaging system is providing the U.S. Coast Guard with real-time undersea data critical to its mission. Although the technology is still under evaluation, it has already assisted the service in its response to the Coast Guard helicopter crash off the Alabama shore in February.

Science Applications International Corporation, McLean, Virginia, is being issued a modification to a previously awarded five-year indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract to change the maximu

The Boeing Company, St.