The military collects a lot of data. This is especially true of data collected on the battlefield. Once information is collected from the field, it has to get to the people who need it most, whether that is frontline soldiers or decision-makers high up the chain of command.
Today, everything, including sensors, vehicles, drones, weapons and even our combat personnel, is linked in the connected battlefield. Accurate and timely data and efficient exchange of information is fundamental to every aspect of military and intelligence operations.
Military leaders need access to mission-critical data across the globe in order to gain situational awareness and quickly make informed decisions. For our armed forces on the ground during combat, situational awareness – the ability to see what’s in the vicinity and anticipate what’s not – can mean the difference between life and death. Situational awareness is heavily reliant on Department of Defense systems, including the integrated web of networks, servers, storage devices, analysis and management software that is responsible for collecting and compiling the data.
Virtualization makes a difference
Virtualization solutions are becoming increasingly important in tactical DoD environments, especially with the U.S. military having such a globally distributed geographic presence. The movement and management of data are especially critical in very remote and technology-disadvantaged locations. Many challenges exist, including limited infrastructure and bandwidth, storage capacity and portability, all of which can prevent warfighters in the field from getting timely mission-critical information. On the battlefield, everything comes down to data, including its availability, reliability, integrity and security.
Virtualization involves creating a virtual version of a specific item – this includes a server, application or database. Data virtualization – the process of abstracting different data sources through a single “virtual” data access layer that delivers integrated information to users and applications in real-time – enables fast, flexible and efficient access to higher quality data in half the time by allowing the delivery of data at 100X the speed of traditional methods.
A more agile approach to data management eliminates the bottlenecks associated with provisioning new environments and backing up or refreshing applications and databases. Virtualizing the data enables self-service data management by automating all the steps in data delivery, including remote mounting of data, resetting initialization parameters and restarting target environments. By deploying data virtualization software in both regional command centers as well as tactical environments, the military can ensure continuous and efficient data exchange among environments despite bandwidth constraints.
The DoD operates over 15,000 networks and seven million computing devices across hundreds of installations in dozens of countries around the world. Military tactical networks are far more complex than ever before and the amount of real-time data that can be gathered from military vehicle electronics on patrol, drones, ground sensors, radars and other sources can soar into the terabytes. More data can lead to better decisions, but the sheer volume of information has created problems for defense agencies, resulting in greater delays, lower signal-to-noise and negative consequences that may benefit the enemy.
When U.S. forces recovered computers used by al-Qaida, they found evidence of Google Maps information on them. Surprisingly, enemy insurgents had access to and were using the same databases as U.S. forces to view streets and plan get-away routes and ambushes. The lesson learned: the technologies and communication devices used by defense and intelligence agencies need to effectively and securely talk to one another despite their different platforms and operating systems. Virtualizing the data improves the ability to rapidly adapt to unexpected events in the dynamically changing combat environment.
Improving situational awareness
Sharing of information results in better situational analysis. Vast quantities of unformatted texts from a variety of sources and types are generated daily and need to be rapidly processed and encoded in order to understand, predict, explain and manage behaviors, positions and/or other relevant enemy activity.
The ability to access large data sets in minutes versus hours, days or weeks shortens time to deployment, enables multiple groups to access data simultaneously and eliminates production downtime. This agile data management approach ensures the right data gets to the right people at the right time by providing continuous, precise, secure and cost-effective exchange of data around the world. The availability of continuous and real-time situational awareness will greatly support military operations across the board.
Gaining the upper hand
Our nation’s past military victories have largely depended on the most innovative information technology tools that enable timely intelligence and integrated operations throughout actual warzones, various hot spots and on the home front. In order for the U.S. to maintain military superiority, military leaders must take advantage of innovative data virtualization solutions for timely mission intelligence that facilitates better decision-making and strengthens situational awareness for all of our military operations and armed forces.
Ted Girard is vice president of Delphix Federal.
