Page 28 - Australian Defence Magazine November 2019

C4I
INFORMATION
“If an adversary can use the latest commercial technologies in an agile and asymmetric manner, you cannot counter them with a large process focussed organisation business model.”
A coordinated attack on Australia’s LNG infrastructure could have significant im- pacts on our economy, global energy sup- plies and in turn Japan’s critical infrastruc- ture. Surely that bears thinking about?
IME as a nation
In our ADM article of November 2018, we argued for an integrated Information Man- agement Environment (IME) for Defence. We now realise that by focussing on De- fence we did not consider the bigger issue. To deal with the threats we are seeing today, and are predicting for the near future, we need an integrated IME architecture for the nation, not just Defence.
We are suggesting something more is need- ed than the Trusted Information Sharing Network that is in place in Australia. We are exploring the idea of a real-time hy- brid Government/Commercial operations system, based on a C2ISR architecture, to support the protection of our nation’s In- frastructure.
Do we want to be in a position in the future of congratulating the ADF on de- feating a range of high technology attacks whilst standing in front burning critical infrastructure because we took a traditional approach to national security and defence?
Could we leave it to Defence to build such an architecture as a prototype for a national system? We don’t think such an approach would be effective and have some thoughts on a path forward.
IME and Defence
Last year we concluded that the issue faced by the ADF was that existing communica- tions and information networks were not designed as an integrated system and did not appear to be a good foundation upon which to build the 5th Generation Force the ADF is acquiring.
We suggested that the ADF needs an integrated communications architecture and network; one that is not just defined by individual projects. Of particular concern was that systems integration across ADF
platforms is not a capability that can be bought off the shelf, it has to be purposely designed, tested, certified, accredited and maintained through life as a weapons sys- tem in its own right. That is a challenge for an organisation that is structured to acquire platforms and system components that are stove piped in design and with a workforce and skill set optimised for Project Manage- ment and Scheduling.
The analogy that we use is that of the iPhone. We have purchased, or are acquir- ing, a magnificent group of apps (plat- forms) that would be amazingly effective if only they could work together. All we are missing is the underlying operating system that enables the apps to do just that. It is worth reflecting that Apple’s approach to the iPhone was the inverse; that is to build
A RAAF C-27J Spartan flies towards Ballalae Island to deliver ballot boxes for the Solomon Islands.
the underlying operating system first and then allow the innovative apps develop- ers to utilise it ... together. We should also recognise that Apple ruthlessly built and enforced a wall around the development environment and architecture in order to maintain configuration control, security
and performance.
So how has Defence progressed in this
area over the past 12 months? From our discussions with Defence and Industry col- leagues it appears that VCDF Group has in- deed made progress through several efforts to bolster the requirements determination process. Plan Aurora, mentioned in our previous article, is being consolidated via promulgation of Integrated Employment Concepts and accompanying Integrated Target Statements. The Group is developing Operational Deployment Patterns (ODPs) for a number of key capabilities.
Integration and Interoperability Ref- erence Frameworks and Capability As- surance are also positive steps forward in
28 | November 2019 | www.australiandefence.com.au