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GCN Home > 08/30/04 issue

Six degrees of worldwide integration

By Dawn S. Onley, GCN Staff

The Defense Department’s Global Information Grid exists today as a vision. It will take shape, over the next decade and beyond, as a six-layered, net-centric and interoperable network with both classified and unclassified components.

By design, the GIG will be in a constant state of development, just as the Internet is. In fact, the GIG essentially is a worldwide Internet for Defense.

“What it’s not is a program,” said Mike Krieger, director of information management in the Defense Department’s deputy CIO office. “It’s more of a concept and vision for how we’re going to transform the department’s IT to support net-centric operations.”

The six layers, or components, of the grid will be fiber, wireless and satellite communications, DOD’s so-called Net-Centric Enterprise Solutions suite of applications, an information assurance layer and a portfolio of experimental pilot programs. Each will be added over the next seven to 10 years as they are completed, according to DOD’s plans.

The money for the portfolio of pilots, dubbed “horizontal fusion,” is an incentive for military leaders to start adopting net-centric systems.

“Horizontal fusion is a key carrot. It’s helping the department move quicker,” Krieger said. “And, if we agree with your pilot, we’re going to give you some horizontal fusion dollars.”

Today, the GIG exists in what Krieger calls “the current state.”

“The capability keeps growing. It’s going to continue to be developed, just like the Internet,” he said. “It’s the processes, policies, as well as the IT and national security systems. It’s too big to turn a switch.”

Still growing

The 200,000 users currently on the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet portal are integrated with the GIG. So is the Air Force’s portal, Krieger said, adding that both portals will see increased capabilities as the GIG develops.

DOD, with the National Security Agency, on June 30 delivered an information assurance architecture, which will become the security component layer of the Global Information Grid. The architecture is being rolled out in three increments, scheduled for completion by 2016.
Robert Lentz
Image: Scott Davis
Robert Lentz, DOD’s director of information assurance, says the GIG’s security component will be fully vetted by the fall.
The information assurance architecture, which now includes 10 documents totaling 2,000 pages, will be fully vetted in the early fall, according to Robert Lentz, director of information assurance for the Defense Department.

The major communications components of the grid are:
  • An IP backbone bolstered by the fiber-optic Global Information Grid-Bandwidth Expansion program
  • A wireless component encompassing the Joint Tactical Radio System
  • A satellite communications loop known as the Transformational Communications System.
“The current architecture in this current system-of-systems world [requires that] we spend a lot of time identifying who needs what data and engineering those interfaces to push the data to those users,” Krieger said. “In a net-centric world, you build it from the ground up. We think you can do that today in small steps.”

More news on related topics: Defense IT, IT Infrastructure