Month: August 2008
Thin client computing and converged voice
Companies, real companies that focus on business success, buy
solutions, not point products. One of the most significant solutions I
have seen in years is coming from a partnership between two great IT
firms, Sun Microsystems and Mitel. The video below has Sun founder and
Chairman Scott McNealy and Mitel Chairman Terry Matthews place this
solution in context. The solution described saves in costs but more
importantly delivers incredible computing power to the user, where ever
the user is, and it does that with far more security.
Scott hits on how important this technology can improve the security situation for government users and I think he gets it exactly right. Thin client changes the security net assessment, as I’ve blogged about before (see: Computer Security: a change to the net assessment ).
As you watch the demo in the video, a couple things will jump right out
at you, like how seamless an integrated desktop to mobile back to
desktop voice and data and computing power solution can be. Another
important point for government users is that the pioneering work that
was done in helping articulate requirements for devices like the Sun
Ray has resulted in a much better product that corporate america is now
running with. That should keep the innovation going in the Sun Ray
product line, which will result in more capabilities in the future.
So, please check this out:
More later.
How fast is 3G and what is 3.5G and when will 4G be here?
Most enterprise CTOs are very interested in the "cloud" and ways to tap
into cloud-based resources. An interesting aspect of this discussion
has been how to access the cloud while on the move. Today's cellular
networks support that access today, and future enhancements are making
that support even better and much much faster.
How much faster? I'll try to put that in context in this post.
Early 3G network to had a download speed of 384kbits per second and an
upload speed of 192Kbits per second. The wireless router you might
have in your home, by contrast, might have a speed of 54Mbits per
second. So, about 140 times faster.
But the 3G networks in place today use new transmission algorithms that
enable much faster throughput. Here is a little more context from
vendor pages:.
Verizon asserts their broadband access, based on CDMA2000 1x EVDO (Code
Division Multiple Access Evolution-Data Only) provides download speeds
of up to 1.4Mbits/s and uploads of up to 800kbits/s.
AT&T is leveraging its GPRS technology called EDGE to deliver
higher speeds that Verizon's. AT&T's EDGE delivers speeds of
around 1.7Mbits/s and upload of around 1.2Mbits/s.
Sprint asserts that its broadband cards delivery 350-500kbps but then say you might get a peak of 3.1Mbps. I wonder if or how often that happens.
What's coming next:
A key emerging protocol is HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access). HSDPA is
sometimes called 3.5G. This protocol is in the HSPA (High Speed Packet
Access) family and allows download of up to 14.4Mbits/s download and
5.8Mbits/s upload. Now this is getting interesting.
HSPA+ allows speeds of up to 42Mbits/s. This is almost what you would
expect to see in your home wireless LAN. The next step is a project
called Long Term Evolution. This LTE will start with providing
150Mbits/s to handheld devices and soon thereafter expect protocols and
algorithms to increase that upto 1gig of bits per second to your mobile
device.
When will these new protocols and speeds be available to consumers?
The answer is, the best roadmaps I have seen are all tightly held insider
views, but if you look at what is being rolled out right now we should
expect a continuing stream of announcements that brings the timing of
these new protocols more into focus. Public information show many
vendors moving to the first version of LTE by 2011. Indications I'm
getting are that it
will be accelerated into 2009.
So, brace yourself for the innovation that will drive in the devices that connect to the cloud through cellular.
Day Three of the Synergy Conference
This is the third and final post on some observations from the 2008 Synergy conference (co-hosted by Stratcom).
The day opened up with a great update on operational intelligence in the modern age, with Mr. John J Powers of the Defense Intelligence Operations Coordination Center (DIOCC) providing a first hand look at the DIOCC, its mission, and recent successes. The question and answer period generated some great dialog and feedback and suggestions from some of the greats in the community, including Mr. Terry Casto and Ms. Lynn Schnur.
JJ's discussions were followed by a panel of CTO-types introduced by Ms. Nancy Wheeler of the GETA. Panelists included Mr. Malcolm Hyson (CTO Microlink LLC), Dr. Alex Karp (CEO Palintir Technologies), Dr. John Triechler, CTO Applied Signal technology), Mr. Guljit Khurana (President and CEO, Centrifuge Systems) and me.
Our panel was followed by the highlight of the day, a presentation by Dr. Prescott Winter, CTO of NSA. I capture some more detailed notes on his presentation below.
Dr. Winter was followed by CAPT Eva Scofield, the Director of Intelligence (J2) for JTF-GNO. This is the position I held from Dec 1998 till 2002. She did a great job of characterizing the threat. I hope all were listening and I hope the world remains alert and focused on this growing menance.
Closing comments were provided by the Stratcom's Director of Intelligence (J2), Captain Jeffrey L. Canfield, USN. Unfortunately, I had to miss that presentation to catch a flight. I imagine Jeffrey did his usual great job of both extracting the key points of an entire confernece and drawing conclusions we should all take away. I'll have to get with him later to see if he can get me up to speed.
Notes from Dr. Winter's presentation:
Dr. Prescott Winter, CTO/CIO of NSA, provided an overview of the NSA IT story and the many changes to the way we do business. He provided a very good, succinct vision and a compelling argument for continued change towards integration. He is fully aware of the great progress that has been made to date and does not discount that. But he knows more needs to be done and is helping us all move forward. We need to move more users into an integrated ops intel space where new information models can be used. The SIE, Single Integrated Environment, for example, is a new model and new operating environment.
A key vision has been to integrate what users see with what intelligence knows. This is an integrated ops/intel space that is serving the mission with an integrated picture that wraps the user. He is moving towards this vision by engaging today's architecture and looking for gaps and addressing those, engaging with industry to know more about the future of technology and how they can address gaps, integrating the NSA investment programs (as you identify stacks of services you must have investment plans that appropriately resource and optimize them). he is also engaging technologists from throughout the organization by working with PEOs and the AE of NSA.
Pres is working hard to move NSA from a net centric model to an info centric model. He is also changing the access model from compartment based to attribute based. On the issue of data ownership, he is doing everthing he can to change the old model of data ownership to data stewardship. This is a behavioral issue. On the issue of SOA and Services, he is moving the entire stack of IT to a services model.
Pres is a champion of the ODNI's info sharing strategy and vision and is working hard to help execute and implement. He is working hard to change attitudes and behaviors from need to know to need to provide. He is working to engineer solutions that will help make data discoverable and available to every member of the selected community that needs that information.
Day Two of the Synergy Conference
Today's sessions were an interesting mix of professionals from throughout the community. Some of the most interesting dialog was on organizational models of senior staffs.
For many years military strategists have pondered the best model for ops intel integration on senior staffs. The introduction to the argument generally mentions that the dominate structure today is like Napoleon's staff. Those who advocate keeping this model and those who advocate merging ops and intelligence into the same organization generally share the same goal of support to the mission and support to operational decisions.
Among COCOMs it was SOCOM that first began advocating for and then
changing their staff to ensure tight organizational coupling and then
integration of ops and intel, and they were successful, perhaps because
of their mission orientation and leadership of seniors on their staff.
But I also have to point out that over time their organizational model
actually returned to something that Napoleon would recognize today, and
there is a strong intelligence function on the SOCOM staff. STRATCOM
has also been a command famous for forward thinking and adjusting to
accomplish new missions assigned to them. Tremendous progress in
modernizing old command constructs was made over the last several
years. A key lesson learned from that, however, is that many of the
steps taken had the unintended consequence of lessoning the ability of
intelligence to support the mission, and no one wants operational
commanders to be served with sub optimized intelligence.
The
good news is STRATCOM has seen that and is taking steps "to return the
J2 position to the importance it once had" (see yesterday's post). I
should also point out that on the CENTCOM staff, which is coordinating
and executing some of the most critically important operations the
nation is conducing today, there is a very strong J2 function. Ops and
intel are functionally integrated at CENTCOM but it is a strong J2 that
ensures the integration, not experimental approaches to organization.
At CENTCOM, like at other operational staffs, the commander would never
give up his J2. That position is critical to victory in the most
important theater of operations.
Many organizations integrate ops and intelligence and do it well. For example, JSOC or CIA. Both are very operational organizations with very key intelligence missions, and both have long had and integrated ops/intel way of working.
We heard today of the SOUTHCOM model. There may be some great reasons for change there. They operate and plan for operations in a theater that is unique for many reasons. I don't have enough info to judge what they are doing, but I hope they are learning lessons from folks like General Ennis and SOCOM and CENTCOM and STRATCOM.
The highlight of the day, and maybe of the entire conference, was a panel and discussion the presentation on Web2.0 and enterprise services. The panel was moderated by Mr. Sean Dennehy, Intellipedia and Enterprise 2.0 Evangelist in the Directorate of Intelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency. His panelists included Mr. Drew Herrick, Deputy Technical Executive, Office of the Americas, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Mr. Scott Yaroschuk, lead for Emerging Technologies/Collaboration for the Joint Staff J6, and Mr. John Hale, Chief of Solutions Delivery for the Intelink Management Office (which some now call the Intelligence Community Enterprise Solutions (ICES).
Sean provided a great overview of some of the Web2.0 capabilities the community is working with today, including:
* One of a suite of Web 2.0 tools including:
o Intellipedia for aggregation
o Intelink blogs for communication
o Tag|Connect (similar to the Internet's del.icio.us) for organization
o Inteldocs (a document management system for file sharing community-wide)
o Gallery (similar to the Internet's flickr)
o iVideo (similar to YouTube)
o Intelink Instant Messaging (IIM)
o Really Simple Syndication (RSS)
Although as a technologist I really appreciated his discussion of capabilities. Perhaps more important lesson was his capturing of three core principles for social software in the Enterprise. Three he lists are:
1. Work at broadest audience possible
2. Think topically, not organizationally
3. Replace existing business processes
Although Sean graciously credits ongoing Enterprise 2.0 academic studies with helping to codify these principles, I could tell he was speaking from the heart about them and the anecdotes he mentioned underscoring their importance.
Scott Yaroschuk continued to build on the presentation with real world examples of the use of these tools to improve and replace existing business processes on the joint staff. This change to business process is the greatest benefit of these Web2.0 tools. Drew Herrick provided example after example of communities of people coming together to solve hard challenges using these new tools, and every example underscored the key lessons Sean mentioned at the beginning of the presentation.
John Hale then led a standing-room only crowd through an in-depth examination of each of the Web2.0 tools provided by ICES. These capabilities are really changing the way things are done in the federal space.
Other presentations this day included a briefing/status report on the Secure Enterprise Datavault by Ms. Kristin O'Keefe of Army G2. The SED will be the first accredited mulit-level secure data repository for use throughout the DoD and the IC.
There were many other presentations today and many technology demos. I'll blog more on them later
Day One at Synergy Conference
This post provides a summary of day one of the STRATCOM Synergy conference. The conference is focused on integrating combat ops/intelligence implications for national intelligence processes. Conference leader Brigadier General Billy Bingham (USAF, ret) opened the conference by reviewing what was discussed last year’s Synergy conference. He also laid out the goal for this year’s conference, to keep moving things forward and to ensure we are “Integrating operations and intelligence so we can achieve our nation’s objectives in the most efficient means possible. ”
The morning included a presentation by the STRATCOM J5 (Brigadier General Mark Owen). He was followed by Major General Michael Ennis, Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Services for community HUMINT at CIA. The afternoon was filled with discussions and briefings that brought home the perspectives of operators from the Ops/Intel world, including a panel filled with ops/intel professionals which discussed lessons learned. Perspectives on ops/intel synergy on the front lines were provided by a seasoned Marine Corps professional. Key areas where ISR models clash were highlighted by a seasoned Air force ISR Colonel. An update was provided on army operational intelligence.
The following provides some takeaway’s from the discussions:
Brigadier General Owens mentioned the many missions of STRATCOM, including nuclear deterrence, and also cyberspace. In his view, STRATCOM’s mission in cyber is to ensure freedom of action in cyberspace. He also signaled a strong intention of the Commander, STRATCOM to return the J2 position to the importance it once had. He also signaled a strong intent to do that while integrating ops and intel into the mission. He talked about the terms he likes to use, those of intelligence and warfighters, since the operators are warfighters.
General Ennis gave personal stories underscoring how important it is for ops and intel to work together. He said great staffs have always worked that way and now at CIA it is all ops and intel together, at JSOC it is all ops and intel together. He thinks it is wrong to use the old models of ops and warfighters. That too frequently forces a separate structure. In the old days there was an ops cell and an intel cell and they were separate. Today, in efficient operations, the intel and ops cells are together. General Ennis is a strong believer in new tools and thinks three in particular are dramatically changing the way we are working together. Blogs, Wikis and the class of tools that lets users go after content in search vice just headlines. By Blogs and Wikis he meant the many open source/Internet based wikis that can provide context and situational awareness. For example, the MCIA cultural intelligence initiative makes extensive use of these tools. He also provide some thoughts on the term “information sharing.” There are things he doesn’t like about that term because sharing implies the data is yours to own and to decide when to share. He believes in joint interagency platforms for ensuring responsiveness, relevance and unity of effort. Regarding Open Source, he would like to see an interagency open source center that is focused on hard problems. Regarding IT, he believes a common IT backbone is critically important to mission success.
The afternoon speakers hit on many great topics related to ISR and the different cultures in the Services and how they clash over ISR. There were many great stories and lessons, and several meaty recommendations. But the bad news is all the stories sound the same as they have for years and the lessons learned are the same ones we have been relearning for years. I guess the point of the conference is that we need to embody those lessons somehow.
More later
How to use the CTOvision site
The following are some power user tips for making the most out of the CTOvision.com blog.
1) Fresh content is always on the main page at http://ctovision.com, but previous content is organized into five key sections which you can navigate to by use of the "Sections" menu on the left column. The sections are:
2) You can use/consume/syndicate our content by use of our RSS and Atom feeds. More info is available here: http://www.ctovision.com/syndicating-ctovision-con.html That page has a link to "Subscribe in a reader." That will take you to a feedburner site of CTOvision content that can be consumed in almost any reader or Web service.
3) At the top left of the blog is an e-mail sign up box. This will
subscribe your e-mail address to receive a note each time a post is
made to CTOvision.com
4) Every page of the CTOvision site has a news ticker along the left column. This automatically defaults to display news with the term CTO in the feed. But you can click other buttons listed there to automatically display news of some of the greatest powerhouse IT firms.
5) Every post on the site has a rating where users can click on a number of stars to give some feedback on the value of the post. Your votes here are very much appreciated. Directly under the rating stars for the post you will see a list of suggested reading that is automatically generated by the "Outbrain" service that CTOvision uses. Outbrain selects those sites based on article content and how you have voted, so they should be of interest.
6) To make maximum use of the CTOvision site, consider connecting to me via Twitter. Every page on the site has a link at the top right column that says "Follow Me on Twitter." Or click this link.
7) The site also has a search box, powered by Google. This is the best way to get to deep, buried content.
8) Other features include a list of the top blogs of interest to the Chief Technology Officer and a list of sites of some of the great thought leaders in our community.
9) There are many pages of independent content relevant to the CTO that can be found through search. A list of these pages can be found in the lower left column.
10) Every post has a link to comments for the post. This user contributed content is frequently the most important content. Please visit it to review the postings of others and please leave your own thoughts if you can contribute to the dialog. Posts also have an ability to let you easily share to Facebook and del.icio.us and Digg.
Thanks for reading the site. If you know of a chief technology officer who could benefit from the dialog on CTOvision.com, please forward this note along.
The National Security Implications of Free 3D in a Browser
Jeffrey Carr sent a short broadcast via Twitter the other day: ”
New post on 3D imaging and Virtual Earth – mind blowing video http://bit.ly/3SxtdA ”
Jeffrey was blogging about a capability shown in the short clip below:
As you watch that, keep in mind that what you are seeing is a capability that can run on any PC that can run Internet Explorer (which is just about all of them).
The clip shows a capability that Microsoft’s Caligari toolset “TrueSpace” has to build high resolution 3D models then upload them into Virtual Earth.
Currently national security planners, as well as others with mission needs for geospatial information, have many choices for solutions. But most good solutions require loading specialized software on the workstation. This includes, of course, Google Earth. Google also provides 3D creation capabilities with Sketch-Up. And that is a powerful combination. But the need to load programs on workstations and move data to workstations complicates enterprise IT solutions. Additionally, Google Earth is reportedly not accurate in elevation measurements. Now the new capability shown in the YouTube clip indicates a solution that can give highly accurate 3D models to planners everywhere, and it can do that without having to instal large stand alone apps on workstations and without having to move large datasets to the workstation.
A use case: Imagine a USMC team preparing for an evacuation of a group of citizens. They shift into their Rapid Response Planning Process (R2P2) and move out. Although this process ensures all available information is used and can accomodate information from external sources, the urgency of the mission means it will proceed no matter what. No one involved is going to waste time trying to download new software programs or test applications or risk breaking systems that are working well. New data is fine, but new software is not needed. This 3D model that runs in a browser could be of tremendous use at times like this. If the data is there, models can be presented to the planning team and they can visually walk through buildings before their mission. The models can be provided from locations far away or from local data if available. And they can be presented on any computer with a browser.
That is just one use case. Many more can be brainstormed by planners, and I’d recommend this dialog get underway soon. But there is actually another meta-point to make. Consider the fact that this dialog can start much earlier in the process because of new web2.0 capabilities. Thanks to Jeffrey’s micro-blogging on Twitter and the Google YouTube posting on his Blog, the national security community has some early warning on things we should be thinking through.
My recommendation: If you haven’t done so already… sign up for Twitter. If you’d like to see some good feeds to follow start here.
CIA IT Leaders Are World Class IT Leaders
Federal IT leaders have it tough. In general, they face hard challenges, are constantly getting their budgets cut, they must comply with tough security guidelines, and must support a workforce who think everything should work like it does in rich corporate environments or in computer security lax homes. And they must support and serve some of the hardest missions on earth.
I appreciate most all the IT leaders I have met in the federal IT space. But a select few rise above all others. Folks like Bobby Laurine, Prescott Winter, Bob Flores, and Al Tarasiuk.
One of those, Al Tarasiuk, was the subject of an article in CIO magazine today. See it at http://www.cio.com/article/print/441116
Here is a little bit of what that article says:
Tarasiuk has, so far, opened up the 61-year-old insular spy agency to
the concept of more efficient and effective information sharing by
using Web 2.0 technologies, such as the CIA's Wikipedia-like Intellipedia
that's used across the U.S. intelligence community. Another sign of
change is a grassroots, Web-based collaboration among Russian
intelligence experts at several U.S. agencies, which enables analysts
to securely share their insights, analysis and information on breaking
news on Russia.
Tarasiuk has instituted a new IT governance team that has—for the first
time—the highest level of management support at the agency. His team
has also moved completely to agile project management methodologies,
virtualized 1,000 servers that are projected to save $18 million in
2008, and empowered frontline CIA employees to ask for, decide on and
employ new IT tools.
In 2007, Tarasiuk's team was finally able to the replace the CIA's main
information-handling system, which was severely outdated and lacked the
basic functionalities found in 1990s-era e-mail systems, with a more
modern and user-friendly system called Trident.
In the process, Tarasiuk has tried to revitalize IT's image within CIA
to match what's necessary today, "to be seen an as enabler of mission
and not just a technology shop that's delivering a desktop," he says.
One thing I know from first-hand experience is that Al is a model of a CIO all enterprise technologists could/should learn from.
CIA IT Leaders Are World Class IT Leaders (continued)
CIO magazine continues its reporting on the IT enterprise at CIA and the CIA's CIO (Al Tarasiuk). I have little more to add: My comments from before still stand: Al is a world class leader and this follow on report just underscores that. I imagine Al is similar to other great CIOs from industry (folks like HP CIO Randy Mott, for example) and my old boss Mike Pflueger of DIA. These leaders must wrestle with far more than technology (they can hand of the easy technology stuff to CTOs, right?). In story after story of the great CIOs I note that they spend a great deal of time on culture, policy, process and human factors.
For continuity I wanted to provide the link to the rest of the story. It is here: http://www.cio.com/article/print/441688
Bob
CTOvision Blog 