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 CANES Initiative

Senior Navy leadership looked at the current unaffordable path of legacy applications and network acquisition--the divergent commercial and DoD trends previously discussed, and decided to make significant improvements to the way naval C4ISR capability is delivered to the warfighter.

The capstone initiative of the Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services (CANES) was developed in collaboration with all the elements of the Naval NETWAR FORCEnet Enterprise (NNFE) as a framework to fundamentally enhance C4ISR capability delivery.

There are four primary components to the strategy underlying the CANES initiative:

* Consolidate and improve the networks on tactical platforms. There are four primary shipboard infrastructure networks today: NIPRNET, SIPRNET, Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) and the Combined Enterprise Regional Information Exchange System (CENTRIXS), each operating at different security levels.

Additionally, many C4ISR applications bring their own unique networks and hardware. The average force-level ship has more than 50 separate networks deployed, all with significant installation, training and supportability issues. More importantly, these networks are typically not interoperable as they were each designed to support a single warfighting function, which is the origin of stove-piped systems.

The desired end state for the new CANES Common Computing Environment (CCE) network, supporting afloat and Maritime Headquarters with Maritime Operation Centers (MHQ/MOC), is a single suite of survivable common hardware capable of hosting a wide variety of near-real time combat support applications.

Cross domain solutions are being employed to reduce IT investment and, more importantly, allow for enhanced movement of data between different security domains on a consolidated network.

The CANES network will build from the lessons learned from current afloat networks to bring significantly increased reliability, capability, security and functionality to the fleet. The first CANES program installations are set to begin in 011. Figure 1 illustrates the CANES evolution.

* Accelerate the movement of DISA's NCES core services to the tactical edge. Moving GIG core enterprise services forward to the warfighter will be accomplished by developing a set of federated services to support tactical C4ISR applications in the disconnected, intermittent or limited-communications scenarios often experienced by naval warfighters.

These CANES core services will ride on the CANES CCE network for afloat platforms and ashore at the MHQ/MOCs. This configuration will allow tactical applications to migrate toward a more flexible and affordable service-oriented approach.

CANES represents the Navy's plan to provide afloat tactical and MHQ/MOC nodes on the GIG. This is critical because many new applications, such as DISA's Net-Enabled Command Capability (NECC), are being designed to ride on these core services.

* Modify existing C4ISR applications to leverage SOA. Modifying the operational requirements for numerous existing C4ISR applications will direct the delivery of capability via the more efficient and flexible SOA approach. This new approach will fall in line with commercial business IT trends and move away from the traditional DoD integrated hardware and software stack legacy systems.