Technology for the United States Navy and Marine Corps, 2000-2035: Becoming a 21st-Century Force Volume 3: Information in Warfare (1997) / Chapter Skim
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2 THE INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE
2 THE INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE
Pages 17-30
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From page 17... ...
In achieving this superiority, the U.S. Navy must reach back to other Services and agencies for information, weld its combat units into a virtual entity of overwhelming power for independent operations, and interoperate with other service components, while relying only on wireless technologies for passing information among its mobile platforms.
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From page 18... ...
The information infrastructure must support these needs, while allowing force structures of arbitrary composition to be rapidly formed and fielded. Furthermore, the infrastructure must adapt to evolving organizational structures and surging requirements in times of crisis.
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From page 19... ...
Some components that are not yet available for system integration are listed below in the section titled "Technology Investments." Although the discussion above presents the required information infrastructure characteristics in approximate order of descending difficulty, they are examined below in the reverse order, from those that are relatively easy to develop to those that are the most difficult. Transport Environment The technological issues concerning the movement of information from one node to another are well understood, and technology is available to meet the warfighter's requirements.
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From page 20... ...
Military systems need adaptive routing because traffic demands are highly variable over time and because link availability and capacity vary rapidly due to platform motion and combat damage. The ability to send information from any source to any destination is an essential feature of "plug-and-play" warfare architectures.
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From page 21... ...
Clearly, the requisite technology is commercially available. Provided by Intelligent Software Agents In the "Warfighting Requirements" section above, the panel cited the warfighter's need for an information infrastructure that provided information tailored to users' needs.
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From page 22... ...
Integrated and Scalable Integration and scalability fulfill the warfighter's requirement to support force structures of arbitrary composition. Capable of Automatically Providing Tailored Information When and Where Needed This capability can be provided by the combination of intelligent software agents distributed among nodes and the transport environment that interconnects the nodes.
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From page 23... ...
Policy Actions Needed policy actions include the following: · Commitment to information superiority through adequate provision of resources, timely incorporation of innovation, strong defense of our information and information systems, and preparations to degrade an adversary's information and information systems; · Adoption of commercial standards and equipment, and adaptation of naval practices accordingly; · Standardization at the proper level, e.g., routing wrappers, and the use of software radios and ISAs to permit introduction of new waveforms, formats, and services; and · Exploitation of the organizational flexibility arising from a powerful information infrastructure.
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From page 24... ...
The maintenance of information superiority in face of the threat of enemy information operations will require skilled and motivated people. However, the panel is aware that when the Defense Intelligence Service Agency (DISA)
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From page 25... ...
Adaptation is markedly less desirable than adoption because in upgrading products commercial suppliers protect customers who have adopted previous generations, while a naval customer who has frozen on an earlier version and adapted it to his needs will lose the benefit of product upgrades and may end up with the burden of maintaining the system. Instead of adapting COTS systems to naval practices, the Navy should lean toward adopting commercial products and adapting the naval processes that use them.
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From page 26... ...
System Acquisitions Four of the elements of the tactical information infrastructure adaptive routers, robust links, relay proliferation, and open systems are sufficiently mature for acquisition, given adequate budgets and policies. Adaptive Routers Although control algorithms better than those currently available may be desired, it is not too early to plan the acquisition of adaptive routers and choose a wrapper format.
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From page 27... ...
Technology Investments Although some information infrastructure elements are ready for acquisition, technology challenges remain in providing the following: · Components for robust links; · Means to adopt appropriate commercial information technology without assuming poorly understood risks; · Architectural integration of heterogeneous systems, including adaptive, flexible human-computer interfaces and appropriate network-of-network protocols;
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From page 28... ...
However, the Fortezza card itself must be imbedded in security services software, which has not been developed. If the Fortezza card were to incorporate the interfaces of the commercial software cryptography systems, the DOD would be relieved of the burden of maintaining and improving security services software but would still maintain control of key generation and distribution.
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From page 29... ...
Intelligent Software Agents Intelligent service application software agents must provide tailored, humancentered data acquisition and processing, data fusion, and information generation and dissemination to users. These agents act to deliver processed, synoptic information rather than volumes of data and images.
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From page 30... ...
The service application software agents collaborate with other software agents to achieve general goals set by users, and based on user profiling, generate pertinent situation changes that may be of interest to the user. The agents support automatic, dynamic, adaptive allocation of transport and processing resources, and replicate as necessary for efficiency and to ensure continuity of services provided to the user.
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