Air Force building military-grade cloud network, with IBM's help

Air Force-IBM contract looks to boost security of cloud computing

The U.S. Air Force has contracted with IBM to design a cloud computing system secure enough to support defense and intelligence networks.

The 10-month project will utilize IBM's "stream computing," a technique for real-time analysis of thousands of data streams that would be used to detect and prevent malicious attacks and system failures.

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The U.S. Air Force has contracted with IBM to design a cloud computing system secure enough to support defense and intelligence networks.

The 10-month project will utilize IBM's "stream computing," a technique for real-time analysis of thousands of data streams that would be used to detect and prevent malicious attacks and system failures.

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Military networks have always been resilient and robust with extensive failover capabilities, important attributes for tasks such as monitoring aircraft flight or planning a mission, says David McQueeney, the CTO for IBM's federal government business. The challenge is achieving the same reliability while also having the efficiency and flexibility of a cloud platform, he says.

The goal is to "evolve the technology of cloud infrastructure so it could be used in a military mission," according to McQueeney.

McQueeney says stream computing, which is enabled by various sensors, monitors and other detection devices, will allow powerful network packet analysis.

"As far as we know, this is a technique that hasn't been applied to a cloud infrastructure before," McQueeney says.

IBM's secure cloud model will also feature autonomic computing, designed to "enable virtual cloud services to be managed remotely and provide capability for the cloud infrastructure to constantly retune itself for optimal performance - without human intervention," IBM says.

After the 10 months, IBM will deliver to the Air Force a number of specific use cases and technical designs of cloud infrastructure that meet military requirements. The Air Force will then decide whether to proceed with a cloud project based on the IBM research. The Air Force could build its own cloud behind the government's firewall, or use a publicly available cloud service, but McQueeney says it's more likely the Air Force will choose a private cloud model.

Air Force officials were not available for an interview Thursday.

IBM says the project will involve its own researchers, military personnel, software architects, analytics specialists, cyber security experts and other federal agencies, but did not reveal the dollar value of the contract.

"In the design, customized, executive-level dashboards will be used to deliver up-to-the-second information on the health and status of the network and facilitate decision-making," IBM's announcement states. "This instant access to information, for example, would enable Air Force officials to automatically shift the prevention environment based on rules-based protocols in the event of a cyber attack or network anomalies."

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