REDEFINING THE NETWORK


UPGRADE


In late September, supported by the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, the Army assessed prototype software-defined networking and software-defined wide area network software loaded onto the unit’s new hardware. Results from this experimentation effort will help inform software-defined networking design decisions and potential uses. (U.S. Army photos by Amy Walker, PM Tactical Network/PEO C3T Public Affairs)


systems. On the other hand, in a software-defined networking design, these two process planes are separated. Te forwarding functions (the data plane) remain with the local network device, but the routing control functions (the control plane) are extracted, turned into more dynamic software, and centralized at a network operations facility, or in a campus network environment, where they can be managed collectively by experienced signal Soldiers.


Te remote routing controller knows all of the nodes that it can manage, and it can sense when there is congestion in the network or when there are dropped data packets, due to things like bad satellite connections or enemy jamming. Trough metrics embed- ded in the software, this intelligent controller can sense the most


118 Army AL&T Magazine Winter 2020


efficient path available and tell the nodes in the network to route around the issues. Te Army’s current software-defined network- ing efforts are setting the stage to optimize routing even further by leveraging machine learning when the required technology becomes available.


RAPID TASK REORGANIZATION AND CYBER OPERATIONS To accomplish certain missions in today’s fight, commanders may need to reassign certain units, such as moving a company to a different battalion. Unfortunately, such a move requires signal Soldiers to re-provision the unit’s vast number of network systems with new data and software, including new applications,


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