ARMY AL&T


partners and solicit ideas for innova- tive technologies that can be integrated into the network and deliver better capability to Soldiers. This effort will invite Army laboratories, academia, and industry partners to further develop Army Programs of Record and to locate commercial-off-the-shelf technologies that might prove useful to the network, Williamson said.


Photos, video, and text are fed to Soldiers in the TOC during an exercise conducted by the Army Evaluation Task Force at White Sands Missile Range. The network allows Soldiers to communicate with different units at various levels of command. (U.S. Army photo.)


and enables the Army to acquire net- work capability more efficiently and effectively, service officials said.


“Using the AETF events to help integrate and synchronize Programs of Record prior to deployment will give us the ability to incrementally upgrade the network capability sets, reflect changes in technology, and bring in the best of industry to help support this effort,” said Paul Mehney, PEO Integration spokesman.


Common Operating Environment


As part of this endeavor, the Army is transforming the way it acquires and develops networking capabilities, applications, and information technol- ogy systems. It is working to establish a common operating environment (COE) wherein multiple systems can work together simultaneously through common Internet protocol standards,


messaging formats, and operating systems, service officials said.


“For years we built great logistics. We built mapping products and fires sys- tems. All of those were great programs, but the reality was we had to move the data back and forth between them. We built some of those things with differ- ent underlying architectures. Now we are working to get the underlying infra- structure, the operating systems, and operating environment standardized. What you want to do is make sure you can operate all of your technologies in the same environment,” Williamson said.


Additionally, availability of the COE and the nonproprietary waveforms will give industry a baseline from which to build, helping to ensure integration- ready network solutions, Mehney said.


In the coming months, Army devel- opers plan to reach out to industry


We intend to make announcements out to industry to get them to bring their technology. There are some capability gaps, things that we know we want somebody to build for us.


24 APRIL –JUNE 2011


“We intend to make announcements out to industry to get them to bring their technology. There are some capa- bility gaps, things that we know we want somebody to build for us. There are technological opportunities where innovative companies come up with ideas,” said Williamson. The idea behind this approach is to give the Army the opportunity to leverage emerging technologies and take proper advantage of new developments, he said.


“It’s about speed. At the end of the day, this is about how I can bring that capa- bility to Soldiers faster,” said Williamson.


KRIS OSBORN is a Highly Qualified Expert for the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology Office of Strategic Communications. He holds a B.A. in English and political science from Kenyon College and an M.A. in compar- ative literature from Columbia University.


PATRICIA RICE is a Strategic Communications Analyst for HQDA, G-3/5/7 LandWarNet Directorate. She holds a B.S. from the University of Mary Washington and an M.B.A. from Simmons School of Management.


MARGARET C. ROTH is the Senior Editor of Army AL&T Magazine. She holds a B.A. in Russian language and linguistics from the University of Virginia. Roth has more than a decade of experience in writing about the Army and more than two decades’ experience in journalism and public relations.


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