A Network Appliance Platform for Linux Applications at the US Department of Defense

Emerging trends in software applications used by the Department of Defense and civilian federal agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security — most notably the need to accurately manage, secure and control network traffic at wire speeds — present these agencies with new network infrastructure development, deployment and integration challenges. These trends, particularly when executed down to the “packet level”, are driving the need for a new class of network infrastructure device — network appliance platforms with new features and capabilities that can support policy-centric applications.

Some of the most innovative network security, traffic analysis and management, VoIP, and mobility applications are Linux-based and available to the federal government as open-source, packet-handling software solutions. Open source, Government Off-the-Shelf (GOTS) and Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) applications require a policy-centric network infrastructure that can execute deep packet inspection and processing at multi-gigabit speeds on a single platform. Thus, network infrastructure devices deployed by the government must have the ability to securely share the same data stream at wire speed either in an inline or passive manner — or both — with a mix of open source and GOTS/COTS applications.

Department of Defense’s Net-Centricity Initiative

As the Department of Defense continues to evolve its use of Linux-based open source technologies, the ability of the network platform to secure the network and manage all associated risks will be of critical importance. Modern warfare places very particular requirements on network communications infrastructure. Correlating data and information from multiple sources to gain a common operational picture of the battlefield is often a difficult task.

The Department of Defense will use next-generation infrastructure devices to resolve this problem with network-centricity, in turn easing the flow of information among sensors, computational nodes and even different communication grids. When this information is consolidated and fused in real-time, the result will be a shorter sensor-to-war fighter gap and much faster deployment of key assets — space satellites, naval battle groups, unmanned aerial vehicles, attack aircraft, ground vehicles, and special forces personnel — by all branches of the armed services to ensure the protection and situational awareness of the war fighter. Clearly, network-centricity requires the use of network appliance platforms that can securely move extremely large amounts of data at wire speed.

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) is transforming itself to better support network-centricity. One of its more widely known initiatives is the Global Information Grid-Bandwidth Expansion (GIG-BE) program, which will vastly improve the current network infrastructure and allow the Department of Defense to better control the data flows and access points to the Internet. With the implementation of GIG-BE, government agencies are transitioning from independent networks to an interconnected infrastructure requiring unprecedented multi-gigabit, highly secure communications across multiple organizations and agencies.