The CANES initiative: bringing the Navy warfighter onto the Global Information Grid: OPNAV N6 directed investigation of the Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services approach as a potential solution to reduce redundant IT infrastructure, provide net-centric capability across the afloat enclaves and allow the Navy to react to rapidly changing network demands

CHIPS, Oct-Dec, 2007 by Phil Turner

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The Dilemma

Some 10 years have passed since the U.S. Navy sought to fundamentally improve C4ISR, command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, capability and services for the Navy warfighter with the initial introduction of IT- 1. The overall goal of these improvements was to increase C4ISR capability to be both flexible and cost-effective.

Flexibility implies that current C4ISR capabilities can be improved with the rapid introduction and integration of new technology and systems. Flexibility also implies that completely new C4ISR capabilities can be integrated into existing systems in a relatively seamless manner.

In the current resource-constrained environment, C4ISR systems must reduce costs by leveraging off-the-shelf commercial technology and commercial standards, supported by a wide private industry base. These visions have not been realized and the situation is worsening despite strong efforts throughout the Navy's FORCEnet enterprise.

The average age of shipboard networks and applications continues to grow to unacceptable levels as a result of numerous regulatory processes, budget constraints and funding instability--as well as the requirement to install hardware during shipyard availabilities.

The average age of a typical shipboard network is approaching seven years, with some ships struggling to support 12-year-old networks. While industry is currently refreshing technology on a four-year or faster cycle, the current Navy C4ISR refresh rate is clearly unacceptable and fundamentally unsustainable for military acquisition.

In terms of the cost of maintaining legacy (and often stove-piped) systems, the Navy will be unable to procure hardware and software spare parts in 10 years if we continue on the current path. The cost of current Navy C4ISR applications maintenance and support continues to grow to the point where these costs are negatively impacting the procurement of new capabilities. This negative cost impact is a direct result of divergent commercial and Department of Defense trends, where the DoD has not leveraged a commercial investment in technology.

The Navy is heading on a course where budgets will be increasingly consumed by the cost of maintaining legacy systems which gives us little of the flexibility the operational forces needs or desires. Due to the inherent way that Navy systems have been resourced and procured, the Navy has been unable to reduce information technology (IT) costs for tactical applications or to provide the degree of agility needed to support the warfighter with the capabilities that new C4ISR systems can offer. And, there is still an urgent and growing need for seamlessly connected C4ISR capability.

Experiences with fielded C4ISR systems have highlighted the urgent need for greater flexibility of applications and faster delivery of capability to the warfighter. Operation Enduring Freedom and the initial phases of Operation Iraqi Freedom clearly demonstrated the overwhelming combat power that U.S. and coalition forces can bring to bear when supported by timely, precise information and modern collaborative technology. These operations were naturally conducted using our current C4ISR systems.

Current military operations continue to be executed within even more complex, uncertain and rapidly changing operational environments that defy straightforward C4ISR technology solutions. All indications are that this trend will not only continue but accelerate in the future.

Experience in the global war on terrorism has demonstrated the need for substantially improved situational awareness, increased agility and enhanced responsiveness to address emergent threats.

Additionally, there have been dramatically increased requirements for flexible and rapid information sharing with coalition maritime partners.

In summary, the Navy is not where it needs to be with regard to flexible, agile and cost effective C4ISR systems, and these needs are growing and becoming more complex.

The Course to a Solution

Adoption of commercial industry trends and standards that move the Navy toward service oriented architectures (SOA) is one area where significant improvements in efficiency and agility are possible. Private business enterprises and their IT providers have implemented SOA not only to reduce software costs and increase code reusability, but also to fundamentally improve their ability to rapidly reconfigure IT systems to support changing business environments.

Numerous Fortune 500 companies have successfully moved in this direction over the past five years and have significant proven returns on investment and enhanced operational agility as their measures of success. Both of these benefits, cost savings and operational agility, are directly applicable to the military procurement and operational environments.

The private business IT model of SOA offers the Navy reduced life-cycle costs, greater speed to deployed capability, and the prospect of users being able to reconfigure systems and capabilities to support changing missions.