February 2013 International Defense Exhibition (IDEX) was held in Abu Dhabi. While walking through the labyrinth of stands and booths three thoughts occurred to me.
Industry is selling their services by threat pictures and wild stories beyond STUXNET, FLAME and RED OCTOBER. Scared military is buying throughout surveys of their security, never ending series of patches to mend found weaknesses and loads of programs and widgets to spy undisciplined end users. One can see a growing market there, because military and particularly governmental agencies don´t tolerate well the stress caused by cyber threats. Urgency develops at higher levels to achieve something and solutions are offered. Is there a leader who can stand the stress and resist temptation of easy patching and invests more assets to hard work of information assurance, security and requires reasonable development of C4ISR -systems? We are living in a complex world where events and especially systems interweaves together. No programmable system is fault free and integrated with other malfunctioning systems, a potential disaster may take us all by surprise. Knowing that nothing is 100% reliable one plans his system of systems so that there is continuity if some of the parts won´t work. This requires the highest understanding of military technology.
Programmable electronic proliferate the space of operations. Within some weapon systems over 60 % of their capability and price is programming and applications. IC -technology is spreading through battle field many times more than assault rifles after the end of WW II. Electronics and devices are disposable but programs are being repaired, updated and reconfigured. Machines of war must understand human information and ontology. They must adapt to sudden changes of battle field. Where is the army of programmers that makes all these changes at the pace of operations. This programmable capability requests logistics and signals to change their support. One has to adopt ITIL to understand software maintenance procedures. One has to adapt more agile ways to develop software based capabilities. One has to create a common understanding between man and machine and machine to machine. Who is defining one datamodel to rule all other datamodels? Who is struggling with unforeseen changes in federative approach? Who is using the next generation web technology and defining resiliently their core tactics and operations?
All these sources of information is to be integrated so that propietary subsystems can tell their information to battle management systems, firing systems of surveillance systems with no standard to define interoperability. There are only couple default information exchange models like JC3IEDM, NFFI, Family of US LINKS. Some more dedicated information exchange methods are even secret because they present major capability over potential enemy. By integrating propietary information models to be able to function as a system of systems you should either:
and maintain for the whole lifecycle of your fighting capability about 10 - 20 years and with conscript army even longer.
Strategic advantage is not a thing one can buy or copy, it is based on one´s strengths and on continuous work to improve one´s skills.
- Currently the hype of cyber defense is in every talks and writings. Are we able to build C4ISR -systems rationally when threat scenarios are pressing decision makers?
- Programmable electronics proliferate weapons, sensors, fighter gear, unmanned vehicles, C2 -systems, surveillance and reconnaissance. Who is able to maintain and support all these applications in the battle field? After sales business is booming. Recall Leylands business model a long time ago: Sell lousy car cheaply today and repair it expensively tomorrow.
- As paper industry has enhanced their productivity with automation, machines, processors and programs, the military is doing now. All subsystems must come together creating a system of systems in order to be more effective. Integrator business is booming and work is never ending. Just when you have all subsystems integrated to each other, something changes and work starts from the beginning.
Industry is selling their services by threat pictures and wild stories beyond STUXNET, FLAME and RED OCTOBER. Scared military is buying throughout surveys of their security, never ending series of patches to mend found weaknesses and loads of programs and widgets to spy undisciplined end users. One can see a growing market there, because military and particularly governmental agencies don´t tolerate well the stress caused by cyber threats. Urgency develops at higher levels to achieve something and solutions are offered. Is there a leader who can stand the stress and resist temptation of easy patching and invests more assets to hard work of information assurance, security and requires reasonable development of C4ISR -systems? We are living in a complex world where events and especially systems interweaves together. No programmable system is fault free and integrated with other malfunctioning systems, a potential disaster may take us all by surprise. Knowing that nothing is 100% reliable one plans his system of systems so that there is continuity if some of the parts won´t work. This requires the highest understanding of military technology.
Programmable electronic proliferate the space of operations. Within some weapon systems over 60 % of their capability and price is programming and applications. IC -technology is spreading through battle field many times more than assault rifles after the end of WW II. Electronics and devices are disposable but programs are being repaired, updated and reconfigured. Machines of war must understand human information and ontology. They must adapt to sudden changes of battle field. Where is the army of programmers that makes all these changes at the pace of operations. This programmable capability requests logistics and signals to change their support. One has to adopt ITIL to understand software maintenance procedures. One has to adapt more agile ways to develop software based capabilities. One has to create a common understanding between man and machine and machine to machine. Who is defining one datamodel to rule all other datamodels? Who is struggling with unforeseen changes in federative approach? Who is using the next generation web technology and defining resiliently their core tactics and operations?
All these sources of information is to be integrated so that propietary subsystems can tell their information to battle management systems, firing systems of surveillance systems with no standard to define interoperability. There are only couple default information exchange models like JC3IEDM, NFFI, Family of US LINKS. Some more dedicated information exchange methods are even secret because they present major capability over potential enemy. By integrating propietary information models to be able to function as a system of systems you should either:
- choose one integrator to be responsible of the whole system of systems or
- use one message model like VMF to cover all subsystems or
- build your semantics to understand every dialect of information sources.
and maintain for the whole lifecycle of your fighting capability about 10 - 20 years and with conscript army even longer.
Strategic advantage is not a thing one can buy or copy, it is based on one´s strengths and on continuous work to improve one´s skills.
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