Project Olympus Forges Critical Digital Pathways to Enable Interoperability

The Protection Division is transferring quickly towards the way forward for warfare wherein resolution benefit will reign because the decisive consider deterring battle, and when wanted, defeating adversaries.  

Army leaders have lengthy acknowledged the crucial to take care of the data edge in an more and more complicated and distributed world safety panorama.

Earlier this yr, DOD introduced it had reached a minimal viable functionality of Mixed Joint All Area Command and Management, the division’s method to offering materials and nonmaterial options to arm entrance line commanders with speedy entry to actionable battlefield info throughout all warfighting domains and all through the globe. 

The aptitude represents not solely a pressure multiplier for the Joint Pressure however may also present the muse for ever growing interoperability between the U.S. and world community of allies and companions. 

That skill to work seamlessly throughout warfighting domains and theaters with a variety of companions is vital to sustaining america’ enduring energy across the globe. It stays a main focus amongst navy leaders that form how the U.S. plans, trains and fights.  

However attaining the truth of seamless integration for CJADC2 between the U.S. and its broad vary of companions isn’t with out its challenges.  

Disparate applied sciences amongst forces together with coverage hurdles have offered a perennial problem for integrating associate nations onto a single community.  

Venture Olympus, a Joint Workers J-6-led initiative, is working to unravel these challenges by way of digital transformation initiatives that synchronize present warfighting capabilities and enhanced safety frameworks that handle entry to knowledge on the end-user degree.

“Venture Olympus is an idea that was fashioned within the Joint Workers based mostly on classes realized from earlier occasions that we have completed with capabilities using new expertise, comparable to zero belief and knowledge centric safety which is actually targeted on entry management to knowledge based mostly on particular attributes to any person’s identification,” mentioned Fred Stanley, the Coalition Interoperability Division Chief throughout the Joint Workers Deputy Directorate for Command, Management, Communications and Laptop (C4)/ Cyber Integration.  

Members of Venture Olympus work alongside worldwide companions to check, develop and combine capabilities important to CJADC2 by way of iterative experiments and demonstrations.

Over the previous couple of years, Venture Olympus participated in a collection of demonstrations and occasions involving a variety of contributors together with U.S. Central Command, U.S. Transportation Command Joint Communications Help Ingredient and associate forces from the U.Okay., amongst others.  

This yr, Venture Olympus is concentrated on implementing its first-ever mission associate surroundings structure on a dwell community that may help a U.Okay.-led maritime mission spanning a number of U.S. combatant instructions and involving 16 worldwide companions. 

The brand new safety frameworks being demonstrated as a part of Venture Olympus transfer the U.S. and associate forces past conventional community safety strategies, permitting for agile and focused entry to important info on an built-in community.  

“We have traditionally checked out safety because the antithesis for info sharing,” mentioned Jim Knight, the U.Okay. lead for Venture Olympus throughout an indication final month. “The safety people are available and wish to kind of clamp down. With zero belief and knowledge centric safety, they’re safety mechanisms, however they’re enabling info sharing.”

“I believe that is a key focus level,” he mentioned. “For the primary time, we’re getting that stability proper by way of making use of extra safety. And by making use of extra safety, we’re getting better info sharing.”  

Knight mentioned what Venture Olympus is demonstrating goes past expertise.  

“It is a paradigm shift,” he mentioned. “We’re transferring from not solely securing our networks on the boundary, having excessive citadel partitions… however we’re additionally making use of safety and data sharing to particular person knowledge objects.” 

Venture Olympus’ success is cast by way of constant take a look at and analysis of capabilities in complicated situations involving a dynamic array of capabilities and associate forces.

In October, members of Venture Olympus took half within the newest iteration of Daring Quest — a Joint Workers-sponsored multinational demonstration and evaluation that gives a proving floor for brand new expertise and warfighting ideas. 

In the course of the demonstration, hosted at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, navy contributors and observers from allied and associate nations gathered to judge technical and procedural technique of working collectively throughout strategic, operational and tactical ranges in all domains. 

This method expedites studying and adaptation. By commonly collaborating, coalition companions can establish and handle gaps in expertise and coverage earlier than they create important danger in real-world crises. 

“Interoperability is essential lengthy earlier than a disaster takes place. Ready for a disaster to deliver companions collectively is unacceptable,” Stanley mentioned, including that “we’d like to have the ability to deliver our companions in on the floor ground.” 

Demonstrations like Daring Quest underscore the significance of iterative demonstrations and assessments to push boundaries and foster a tradition of true interoperability. 

“We’ve got to maintain doing workouts or occasions, not annually however a number of occasions, to proceed pushing the boundary,” mentioned Military Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Cavanagh, a Venture Olympus consultant from U.S. Transcom’s Joint Communications Help Ingredient.  

That very same sense of a necessity to repeatedly innovate resonates all through the division. 

Final yr, in a keynote handle titled “The Urgency to Innovate,” Deputy Protection Secretary Kathleen Hicks spoke to cloud computing’s necessity in implementing CJADC2. 

She mentioned digital foundations, like these being developed by Venture Olympus, are serving to understand Mixed Joint All Area Command and Management. 

“This isn’t a platform or single system that we’re shopping for,” Hicks mentioned. “It is an entire set of ideas, applied sciences, insurance policies, and expertise that is advancing … command and management.”