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LEADING THE FUTURE

When it comes to delivering the
DoD's Network of the Future,
Chris Smith is the right architect for the job.

CHRIS SMITH has seen the public sector IT mission from every possible angle.

Smith, Vice President of Technology for AT&T Public Sector, spent 25 years in the Air Force and National Guard and served as CIO for Joint Forces (Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines) within Joint Special Operations Task Force in the Philippines. On the federal civilian side, he served as CIO at the Department of Agriculture, overseeing one of the largest federal migrations to cloud computing. He also led the first civilian agency test of Einstein 3 technology to improve cybersecurity. 

Now, Smith wants to put the best private sector network in the world at the disposal of the Department of Defense.

“The geopolitical environment has changed, with near-peer adversaries around the world sprinting forward in the development of their IT capabilities. The military needs to move beyond the old mindset of studying an IT challenge for two years and deploying new technology in ten,” Smith said at a recent event sponsored by Government Executive. “Today’s military requires a more powerful and flexible platform that allows mission requirements to dictate the connectivity, not network constraints.”

The geopolitical environment has changed, with near-peer adversaries around the world sprinting forward in the development of their IT capabilities.

Smith’s background puts him in a strong position to assist with the DoD network transformation challenge. He’s successfully implemented change in military and federal civilian organizations, and now he leads technology for the nearly $15 billion business. Recent demands for mobility, big data, and the Internet of Things, coupled with technology transformations brought on by the data center evolution and cloud services, are driving transformative changes across the technology spectrum.

The DoD currently operates approximately 15,000 separate networks, which are often dominated by older hardware and proprietary standards. Most of the technology was implemented at least 15 years ago, prior to macro trends such as virtualization, cloud computing and the move to mobile—all of which have fundamentally evolved private sector networks. 

These transformed networks truly change what’s possible from a performance and flexibility standpoint. There is an expression well known in engineering circles—“I can give it to you faster, better or cheaper, but you only get two out of the three.” Today for the first time, software-based networks offer IT leaders all three aspects of the equation—greatly enhanced networking performance, speed to deployment and lower costs.

“Using properly developed software, virtualized network functionality can be more secure than purpose-built hardware and far less brittle.” 

These transformed networks truly change what’s possible from a performance and flexibility standpoint. There is an expression well known in engineering circles—“I can give it to you faster, better or cheaper, but you only get two out of the three.” Today for the first time, software-based networks offer IT leaders all three aspects of the equation—greatly enhanced networking performance, speed to deployment and lower costs.

“The world has changed, and the DoD should look to leverage proven, best-of-breed commercial services wherever appropriate,” says Smith. “The key is strong leadership and focusing on the 10 to 20 percent of time that connectivity must be 100 percent ensured in remote, denied environments. Using properly developed software, virtualized network functionality can be more secure than purpose-built hardware and far less brittle.”

From 2012 to 2016, AT&T invested more than $140B in its networks – more than any other public company.

Operational demands are forcing the DoD to change its entire network delivery model. The key drivers causing this requirement are the same ones many other government agencies and private sector companies face: improving operational availability, realigning personnel to higher value tasks and driving out costs. The need to provision and scale networks rapidly, while also adapting in real-time to changing operational requirements that can no longer be delivered using traditional methods, is increasing the demand for innovative solutions.

Commercial network providers have already addressed these transformation drivers. AT&T has invested $140 billion in its global network over the last five years. It works with companies in all major industries, including nearly all of the Fortune 1000. The DoD needs to make better use of this foundational piece of critical infrastructure.

The age of the private, purpose-built network is past. There has been a 250,000 percent increase in data traffic over the AT&T network in the past decade. Today the daily average is 197 petabytes per day. No organization can keep up with that tidal surge by throwing servers and routers at the challenge. Network carriers around the globe have moved decisively to software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) to address modern data networking needs. 

In legacy networks, routers and other network devices are managed individually, with the focus on devices rather than applications. SDN abstracts the control plane from individual devices, giving administrators end-to-end visibility of network flows and the power to optimize traffic paths via policy, rather than hardware. 

NFV moves networking functions from special purpose hardware to COTS equipment running open source code, dramatically reducing cost and adding flexibility. AT&T is no longer buying purpose-built equipment at quantity, but instead fielding non-vendor specific, multi-function white boxes that can perform numerous network uses on a single device.

The end result is putting the focus on developing new services and capabilities, instead of worrying about infrastructure limitations. Technology is invisible when it works—why should a commander or warfighter ever have to worry about networking issues? They should be able to focus on the mission, which is supported by a network second to none in the world. 

AT&T has built that network. The global platform is 55 percent SDN today, and will be 70 percent by 2020. AT&T offers NFV services to countries around the world, and the company plans to release 8.5 million lines of code to support open source interoperability and innovation. Currently the DoD spends 70 percent or more of its IT budget on maintaining legacy systems, with only a small percentage left over for new technology and services. 

Within the current procurement and budgetary realities, it is inconceivable for the DoD to spend as much money upgrading their networks, as commercial providers have done. It’s unavoidable that the DoD will need to rely more on proven, next-generation commercial networks. Senior leaders such as Army Chief of Staff Gen. Milley have said as much. But the process needs to happen faster, in order to close an accelerating innovation gap that is hampering IT functionality. 

Technology is invisible when it works — why should a commander or warfighter ever have to worry about networking issues? They should be able to focus on the mission, which is supported by a network second to none in the world.

“If the DoD moved to a network-as-a-service offering, for every $1 invested it could see a $5 return in added capability,” explained Smith. “This would also move infrastructure cost from CAPEX to OPEX and would improve cybersecurity. AT&T has unique visibility into new and evolving security threats, we analyze approximately 660 billion flows of network data per day.”

When he’s not busy, Smith can be found chasing cattle on his farm in Western, Virginia where he lives with his wife. After a long career in service is done, Chris and his family will have more time for the farm and RV trips across the country. But there is one big job left before then—providing the network the DoD needs to maintain IT supremacy over any potential adversary. 

DEFENSE

NETWORK OF TOMORROW – TODAY

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