U.S. DoD must retool its management of network, communications, and spectrum to maintain tactical overmatch in the cyber warfighting domain. Gaps in understanding tactical network architecture, network status, cyber posture, and the spectrum/EW environment can hamper a commander's ability to make fully informed decisions at the tactical edge.
Programs advancing concepts such as Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) and Cyber Situational Understanding are beginning pilots to address subsets of well-known challenges in these spaces. The complexity of gathering and fusing data from multiple sources – particularly in disconnected, intermittent and limited (DIL) environments – necessitates progressing towards the ultimate vision of a unified network, one step at a time.
Tactical NetOps programs can play a key role in enabling mission success for warfighting in the cyber domain. They have access to the network architecture, network health data, and the 'pipes' to distribute that data to commanders wherever they are. Advances in NetOps tools hold the key to providing understanding in the cyber domain, enabling commanders in the future to have complete cyber understanding.
Join David Heredia, Jr., Lead-Senior Network Engineer, PM TN PdM Tactical Cyber and Network Operations, and Rodney Snell, VP Software Engineering, PacStar, in exploring how tactical programs can use network management tools in DIL environments to meet the challenges of fighting in the cyber domain while maintaining communications reliability and enabling cyber situational understanding.