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October 8, 2020 | International, Naval, C4ISR

The Navy needs industry to tackle software-defined networks, data sharing

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy needs to quickly modernize its fleet's network in order to be prepared for future fights, but one of the “greatest impediments” to that effort is that 5frwcgydtqr5s4eathe hardware inside ships requires hull cuts to be upgraded, a top Navy IT official said Monday.

“These platforms need to be water-tight which means our entry points are small. The equipment that needs to be upgraded inside the hulls often requires hull cuts,” said Rear Adm. Susan BryerJoyner, Navy cyber security division chief in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. “That challenges our ability to pivot quickly in order to upgrade the traditional hardware that [delivers] the capabilities we're trying to provide to the warfighter.”

The key to modernization is to get around the hull cuts, BryerJoyner said Wednesday at the AFCEA NOVA Naval IT Day. This is a time-consuming process that has long irked the Navy. Instead, the service is turning to industry for help getting around the large hardware requirements of traditional networking capabilities.

BryerJoyner said that the Navy's future lies in software-defined networking. Software-defined networking relies on software applications for network management.

“We need to get to software defined networks. We know we need to be able to share data more seamlessly across the Navy. The challenge is, how do we come up with modular platforms that don't require hull cuts in order for us to be able to swap in and out on board the ship,” she said. “That's honestly one of the greatest impediments to modernization.”

She also added that the service is seeking help from industry for data sharing. Like the other services, Navy ships must be able to pass data in denied and degraded environments, whether that's caused by the weather, adversaries or the poor satellite connection. The service, she said, must adjust to a state of operations where applications do not have constant connectivity.

The Navy also needs to understand if the data needs to be shared just locally aboard a ship or if it needs to be aggregated in some form to be shared with the rest of a strike group or across a theater, she said. Data sharing capabilities across the theater will also be a critical component for Joint All-Domain Command and Control, a major push by the services to connect sensors and shooters across domains.

Tactical cloud computing in remote environments will be a cornerstone piece to data sharing. Speaking on the same webinar, Navy Chief Information Officer Aaron Weis said the shift to cloud, driven in part by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, was currently the top priority. But for tactical cloud, Weis said, “there's no better use case for tactical cloud than a ship afloat or an expeditionary marine force.”

“If the end state is ‘I'm not going to be able to securely move data from anywhere to anywhere,' well, now we're back to that modernization and the network discussion," Weis said.

https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/it-networks/2020/10/07/the-navy-needs-industry-to-tackle-software-defined-networks-data-sharing/

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  • US State Department cleared $83.5 billion in foreign military sales in FY20

    October 2, 2020 | International, Aerospace

    US State Department cleared $83.5 billion in foreign military sales in FY20

    Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — The U.S. State Department cleared $83.5 billion in Foreign Military Sales cases in fiscal 2020, the highest annual total of FMS notifications since the start of the Trump administration. The dollar total — spread over 68 FMS cases notified to Congress — represent an increase of roughly $15 billion over FY19 figures. However, that dollar figure comes with a number of caveats that will lower the overall dollar figure of actual sales when negotiations are complete. FMS notification figures represent potential arms sales that the State Department internally cleared, then passed to Congress through the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. The notifications do not represent final sales; if Congress does not reject the potential sale, it then goes into negotiations, during which dollar figures and quantities of equipment can change. Four key members of Congress, either individually or collectively, have quietly frozen all major U.S. arms sales to Turkey for nearly two years. However, while not solid dollars, notifications are a notable way of tracking interest in American arms from foreign partners, and are seen as a leading indicator of final sales to come. Geographically, the Pacific region led the way with 25 requests totaling $44.1 billion in potential sales. Following that was Europe with 20 requests totaling $21.1 billion; the Middle East with 14 cases totaling $11.5 billion; and Africa with five cases totaling $5.1 billion. Central and South America (three cases) and Canada (one case) each totaled less than $1 billion. July was the busiest month, with 15 announcements worth $32.5 billion, followed by September with nine announcements worth $17.4 billion. Japan was the largest single customer, with five cases worth an estimated $27.9 billion. The second-highest dollar total for one nation was Switzerland — which leads to the biggest caveat from these numbers. FMS deals sometimes never come to fruition, and that is particularly true with two cases included in the FY20 figures: Switzerland and the Philippines. In both cases, the State Department moved to preapprove those nations to buy high-end American technology, even though the governments had not selected the winner of their respective internal competitions. That means that while the Philippines has not decided on its next military helicopter, the U.S. State Department in April announced it cleared potential sales for both AH-1Z helicopters at $450 million and AH-64E Apaches at $1.5 billion. The case was even starker in Switzerland, where the country was cleared this week to purchase both the F/A-18 Super Hornet for $7.45 billion and the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter for $6.58 billion. In both those situations, the country has yet to decide if it will purchase any American system, and will not be purchasing both; a decision to buy from elsewhere in both cases would drop the FMS total by almost $16 billion. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2020/10/01/us-state-department-cleared-835-billion-in-foreign-military-sales-in-fiscal-2020/

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  • US Should Pull Drones From Missile Control Regime: Mitchell Institute

    June 4, 2020 | International, Aerospace

    US Should Pull Drones From Missile Control Regime: Mitchell Institute

    "I have great hopes that this administration, with its bold unilateral actions on so many fronts, would take unilateral action with this regime on UAVs," says Keith Webster, former DoD head of defense cooperation. By THERESA HITCHENSon June 03, 2020 at 12:48 PM WASHINGTON: The Trump administration should unilaterally declare that it will no longer subject drone sales to export control restrictions under the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), says a new Mitchell Institute study. And Congress should use the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to redefine unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as aircraft, which not only remove them from MTCR restrictions but also would ease US domestic export controls, asserts the paper, “”Modernizing UAV Export Policy for Effective Coalition Forces,”. “The US Congress should craft language in the 2021 NDAA that defines UAVs as aircraft, not cruise missiles, but as aircraft, and subject to the same export considerations as any other military aircraft,” said Heather Penny, senior resident fellow at Mitchell and the paper's author, during a webinar today. “We believe that this language, a statute, would be sufficient to be able to remove UAVs from being subject to the MTCR guidelines.” The 35-nation MTCR agreement requires a “strong presumption of denial” for sales of so-called Category 1 drones — those that can carry a 500 kilogram payload more than 300 kilometers. The Category 1 definition is considered as the minimum capability a missile needs to carry a nuclear warhead. Smaller unmanned aerial vehicles also are covered under MTCR's Category 2 rules, but those export restrictions are less stringent. Even the treaty-hating Trump administration sees the MTCR — a political agreement rather than a treaty — as a key tool in preventing the proliferation of ballistic and cruise missiles. This is despite its long-standing efforts to ease drone sales to allies, including through revamping US domestic law to allow “Direct Commercial Sales” by companies, rather than requiring all sales to go through the formal Foreign Military Sales process that requires approval by DoD, the State Department and Congress. Indeed, over the past year the administration tried — and failed — to convince its MTCR partners to revamp the rules to allow drones flying less than 800 kilometers per hour to slip out from under the Category 1 rules, said Penny. Washington is now expected to try again at the annual MTCR signatories meeting, she said, instead suggesting a 600 kph speed limit as the line of demarcation between the two categories of export restrictions. (The meetings are usually held in the fall, although there has yet to be an announcement of the 2020 dates.) But, Penny argued, even if this new effort comes to fruition, it would fail to fix the underlying problem of allowing allies to buy high-end US combat drones — and preventing them from fully integrating with US operations. Secondly, she asserted, complying with MTCR rules “distort the market” in favor of Chinese sales, she said, since China is not a member of the MTCR and has few formal restrictions on arms exports. “Continuing to adhere to and apply MTCR guidelines to UAVs facilitates Chinese strategic interests,” Penny said. “It's working against US interests.” Keith Webster, former DoD head of defense cooperation, agreed — calling efforts to revise the MTCR as a “Band-Aid” that would soon loose viability because of the rapid pace of technology improvement. “I wish we would act unilaterally,” he told the Mitchell Institute webinar. “We have the ability to act unilaterally. And I would like to see us do so very soon. I have great hopes that this administration, with its bold unilateral actions on so many fronts, would take unilateral action with this regime on UAVs.” That doesn't mean, Webster hastened to add, pulling out of MTCR itself. “Stay in the MTCR,” he said. “It served its purpose.” The experts acknowledged that a unilateral US move to exempt UAVs from MTCR could spur other nations to do the same for their own weapons systems that could exacerbate nuclear proliferation. Penny stressed that it was key for the US to renew its commitment to nonproliferation of ballistic and cruise missiles, and support MTCR's rules for those systems. Saying that “we need to be honest with ourselves about the implications” while seeking “creative solutions” to the UAV issue, Webster seemed to suggest that ultimately the US may decide the MTCR itself isn't worth the trade off. “There are challenges with compliance within the regime with at least one member,” he warned. As Breaking D readers know, US military leaders and Congress have sounded the alarm on the proliferation of cruise missiles by Russia (an MTCR member) and China that can more easily slip through US ballistic missile defense systems. This is especially true for hypersonic missiles, which have speeds above Mach 5 and while visible on radar are extremely hard to target. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/06/us-should-pull-drones-from-missile-control-regime-mitchell-institute/

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