By Army News Service on Tuesday, May 21st, 2013
Interoperability with intelligence community paramount for DCGS-A
This week, the military Intelligence and Security Command conducted an indication of the Distributed Common Ground System – Army, for members of the click in addition to members of Congress and their staff to assist them better understand the system.
The top message popping out of the demonstration was that Distributed Common Ground System – Army, or DCGS-A, is compliant with the factors of the intelligence community, that incorporates the military, the opposite services, the DOD intelligence agencies, and other federal government intelligence services in addition.
Also a key message of Army intelligence community leaders on the demonstration was the concept new tools and software packages can be added to the already robust DCGS-A “family of capabilities,” but provided that they’re compliant with the factors of the intelligence community, provided that they’re seamlessly interoperable.
The DCGS-A is a part of a bigger network of DCGS systems in the DOD, including one run by the Navy, the Marine Corps, and the Air Force.
The “system” connects Soldiers eager about intelligence gathering and analysis with one another, with those inside the intelligence community of joint partners, and with the bigger intelligence community of the U.S.
DCGS-A is already deployed to theaters worldwide, said Lt. Gen. Mary A. Legere, the Army’s deputy chief of staff, G-2.
“It is globally deployed,” Legere said. “This isn’t a system it really is within the lab. This can be a system it’s supporting and has supported nine corps, 38 divisions and 138 brigade combat teams. It’s been since its inception, fielded, and supporting either one of the wars, in addition to spreading out to other global theaters.”
Today, she said, DCGS-A is in Afghanistan and is utilized by Soldiers in the course of the Middle East, in addition to at units assigned to U.S. Africa Command, U.S. Army Pacific Command, “and anywhere you have got Soldiers who’re deployed.”
The DCGS-A is not really a section of software, or a bit of hardware. It’s really an “enterprise,” Legere said.
That is, there may be now a group of various software packages, just some developed by the military, which are utilized by members of the intelligence community around the Army. All of these software packages can process intelligence that’s shared in a technique that they are able to all access it and process it without the complication of incompatible data.
Intelligence information produced by Army sensors, equivalent to a grey Eagle, an international Hawk or a Shadow unmanned aerial system, or by human intelligence gatherers, are easily ingested into the DCGS-A system because they’re all compliant with one standard. And the information, once within the system, is definitely shared, around the globe and instantly, with users of DCGS-A.
The data, as it is compliant with a single standard, could be ingested and processed by anybody of dozens of intelligence analysis software tools because each of the data is compatible. Output from those tools also remains compatible and visual around the DCGS-A “enterprise,” around the intelligence assets of different services, and around the wider U.S. intelligence community.
Legere said DCGS-A is a “family of capabilities, [that] includes sensor controls and downlinks for data that connects our Soldiers to the joint intelligence platforms. It’s a typical enterprise, it ensures your entire data they see is viewable and is offered so the warriors can collect, analyze, collaborate, re-task and redistribute intelligence.”
It’s not the military, or one defense contractor that has built DCGS-A. Legere said greater than 40 private sector industry partners around the U.S. are participants in development of the system, all of whom have adjusted their very own independent products they dropped at the table to slot throughout the DCGS-A environment, and in the environment of the bigger U.S. intelligence community.
Legere said that there’s better software available to be included throughout the DCGS-A enterprise, but that during order for such software pieces to be accepted and integrated, they need to first be compliant with DCGS-A, that’s in turn compliant with intelligence community standards.
“We take joint and intelligence community interoperability very seriously,” Legere said. “We work with any other DCGS programs [within the other services], in order that nothing is available in on our hardware or software that may impede our ability to share or interact with our partners, their data or sensors.”
The general went directly to say that Soldier safety, and winning the war fight is the No. 1 priority of the DCGS-A program, and knowledge standards is fundamental to making sure that.
“Ultimately, every decision we make about our program is set our Soldiers and their commanders,” she said. “Sometimes we need to explain that that intelligence community standard, and that data access, can be more important than the item that, quite frankly, seems easier, but creates issues.”
The Army didn’t create the intelligence community data standards, Legere said. However the Army does, because the largest “footprint” in any theater, have a responsibility for compliance with those standards, and prefer joining the military itself, component to participation means compliance with standards.
“Other services expect the military for this disciplined support,” she said. “And our industry partners who work with us understand we don’t wish to compromise interoperability that will use their products.”
Related Topic Tags