• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

JWID Leads the Way to Interoperability

Story Number: NNS030227-19
2/27/2003

By Michael A. Brown Sr., Defense Information Systems Agency Public Affairs

HAMPTON, Va. (NNS) -- Coalition interoperability is a vital capability in today's worldwide operations, according to officials at the Joint Staff and at the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA).

That's why the annual Joint Warrior Interoperability Demonstration (JWID) and its focus on command and control, communications and computer (C4) solutions is especially important in 2003.

Rear Adm. Nancy E. Brown, vice director of Command, Control, Communications and Computer Systems Joint Staff, said interoperability is absolutely essential to allow information superiority to evolve and grow.

"We must continue to field systems that are conceived and born interoperable," she said. "The military services are providing funding to allow warfighters to assess the technologies. Our combined operations in Afghanistan and other worldwide locations will be using JWID developed products, like the defense collaboration tool suite."

JWID focuses on "Coalition Interoperability, the 21st Century Warfighter's Environment." The challenge is to define solutions to interoperability issues; ensure those solutions can be applied to the operational community; and enable a standard solution for information sharing between coalition partners.

In addition, JWID will feature information exchange across multiple domains, a critical capability in the global war on terrorism.

The U.S. Pacific Command, Camp Smith, Hawaii, is the host, and DISA, in Arlington, Va., is the lead agency for the event. Additional U.S. sites include the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren, Va.; SPAWAR Systems Center, San Diego; and Electronic Systems Center, Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass.

"One of our key operating principles is that interoperability should be built in, not bolted on," said Brig. Gen. Carroll F. Pollett, DISA principal director for operations and commander, DISA global operations. "JWID will lead the way to more effective operations, like a road map. We all need a road map, because interoperability should not be an afterthought, .something we try to incorporate after a system is fielded."

This annual Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff event enables U.S. combatant commands and the international community to investigate C4 solutions that focus on selected core objectives. The demonstration is conducted over the Combined Federated Battle Laboratories Network and features assessment of more than 46 coalition interoperability trials (CITs) at operating sites around the world. Coalition partners conduct their own interoperability trials and assessments.

JWID is conducted in a simulated operational environment to provide context for warfighter validation of C4 solutions. Each CIT will receive a comprehensive assessment. Depending on the CIT, the assessment may include a warfighter, technical and/or a security assessment.

JWID is conducted over a worldwide secure research and development network. A key objective of JWID 2003 is to investigate how to provide multiple levels of security on the network as outlined in specified objective areas.

Six core objectives cover multiple levels of security, logistics, language translation tools, situational awareness, coalition network vulnerability assessment capability and core network services.

"Each objective is a refinement or restatement of an underlying U.S. combatant command, Combined Communications Electronics Board nation or NATO nation requirement," according to Brown. "The CITs seek to demonstrate a capability to improve or even establish a capability in support of one or more of the objectives."