Military Communications for Humanitarian Missions

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  Wednesday 6 April 2011

  By: Dan O'Donnell
  
  When you think about global military organizations what comes to mind? The first thought is probably war. Military organizations, however, are involved in much more than just bombs, bullets and battles. At a high level, the military is an organization that is highly skilled in the rapid deployment of human and physical resources under harsh circumstances.
  
  This expertise and training makes the military the logical and preferred choice for responding to humanitarian missions as well as battlefield operations. We have seen the heroic efforts of military coalitions after the disastrous earthquakes in Haiti and Japan. The foundational element to the success of these missions is establishing coalition communications.
  
  The most immediate challenge when responding to a disaster or other joint services operation is communications. Imagine a multi-national coalition arriving on the scene of a disaster. A command structure must be established among diverse organizations from different nations and cultures. Further, the local authorities and other service organizations such as the Red Cross need to be integrated into the effort. Now, assume the likelihood of a severely damaged or non-existent communications infrastructure.
  
  Execution of the mission plan is dependent on the rapid deployment of a communications structure among all the responding organizations. This interconnection of resources requires a complex configuration of communication policies and procedures including:
  
  Data sharing across the federation
  Application of policies determining who can access what information from what sources
  Authentication of who is accessing information
  Protection of critical and often confidential information
  In order to establish trust and an open flow of information among federation partners, it is critical that the communication infrastructure be monitored to protect classified information while allowing a consistent flow of mission critical information among all partners. There is no tolerance for network downtime in critical response missions. Therefore, there must be a balance of highly available connectivity and by-pass options for sophisticated, software intensive appliances.
  
  There are a variety of network appliances that help automate this process, secure communications links and manage the flow of information. When installed in-line, however, software intensive appliances can cause network disruption. Network Critical V-Line taps allow multiple appliances to efficiently manage and protect packet flow while maintaining high availability of links. V-Line taps provide a simple hardware connection to network links for crucial security and monitoring appliances and allow maintenance, upgrades and changes to occur without breaking the link or interrupting network operations.
  
  Network Critical is a proud participant in the TM Forum multi-vendor technology demonstrator (catalyst project) titled Rapid Communications Deployment – Federated Service Level Management to Support Multi-National Preparedness in Crisis. NATO C3 Agency is the primary champion of this work. According to the NATO C3 Agency, “NATO C3 Agency is strongly supporting this TMF DIG Catalyst and pleased to work with the industry on proving and maturing the federated service management concept that Nations shall be able to reuse.” Other companies participating in this catalyst project include CA, Infonova, Layer 7, Progress Software and TNO.
  
  The project participants will demonstrate how an Information Communications and Technology Network (ICT) can quickly be built, managed and secured in the most difficult of circumstances. Network Critical taps will be used in the demonstration to connect appliances providing Quality of Service and Security enforcement on the network while maintaining failsafe, continuous operation.
  
  The results of this project will be demonstrated at TM Forum Management World in Dublin, Ireland the week of May 23rd, 2011. Included in the demonstration is a Network Critical V-Line tap providing in-line link access to a CA Net QoS device monitoring a live video conference link. The live link will be provisioned using an automated interconnection of a Layer 7 policy appliance and an SLA library that will provide the right amount of bandwidth to the right location at the right time. The Net QoS device will manage and enforce the SLAs and SLA violations to Mission Command.
  
  Click here for more information about this project.
  
  For more information about TM Forum Management World 2011, click here.
  
  Read more stories like this on Network Critical's Blog at www.networkcritical.wordpress.com