ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. (Sept. 7, 2016) -- A standing room only crowd made up of some of the Army's brightest software experts gathered in the Top of the Bay Club here today, for the inaugural Software Solarium, hosted by the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM).
The internet of things…the internet of battlefield things…the deep future of the software environment…just a few of the terms overheard in the opening minutes.
Why hold a Software Solarium? The exponential growth of software over the past decade has placed the Army at a strategic crossroads. Virtually every warfighter and business system in use today requires complex software that must be developed or acquired, updated, integrated, and maintained, in quick succession, to support the end user. The software in question may be used to enable a weapon system's capability or provide enterprise functionality to perform worldwide logistics -- in both cases, software has become a key component for Army readiness. This is complicated by the fact that the future software environment is defined by an industry driven move towards primarily software managed weapon systems, infinitely easier to sustain and update than hardware with its associated long, drawn out acquisition processes.
"But when you look at our Army, you can make the argument that we're still a hardware focused institution," said Maj. Gen. Bruce T. Crawford, CECOM Commanding General, during his opening remarks. "And my very simple question is, is that a good place to be? If the answer to that is no, and my gut tells me that it potentially could be, then the question becomes: What do we do about it? So let's have this conversation, let's at least arm our Army to make some informed decisions as we go forward."
This event brought together more than 100 senior leaders in the Army software community, along with representatives from sister services and academia.
"I'm very pleased with the turnout," said CECOM Software Engineering Center (SEC) Director (acting) Medhat Abuhantash. "This is an opportunity to bring all the leaders and the stakeholders in software to have a meaningful discussion on the future of software and the challenges we face, we're very excited about this event."
Presenters from the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Army Research Lab (ARL) set the stage with deep looks into threats, vulnerabilities, assurance and the long term future of software development.
"This is the Army's Software Solarium," said Crawford. "This is your opportunity to develop some strategic questions for the Army as we go forward."
The connection between software and Army readiness was palpable.
"For us, the internet of battlefield things that was just referred to, ties all these sensors to the capability to deliver lethal effects," said Brig. Gen. David T. Isaacson, Deputy Chief of Staff G-6/Chief Information Officer, U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM). "All of our capabilities are interwoven, and if the software, and packages, the burgeoning capabilities are not interoperable, or they're cumbersome, then we increase the time it takes to deliver lethal effects. We want to reduce (that time) and make sure that we're interoperable, that they're protected, and the information is assured. This helps us reduce the kill chain from sensor to shooter to deliver combat effects as quick and efficient and effective as we can make it."
One of the main points of holding this software-focused event was to bring together the divergent software elements of today's Army.
"There are pockets of excellence, there is tremendous work going on throughout the Dept. (of the Army) in the software space," said Crawford. "But one of the biggest problems we've got is that we're not optimized to take advantage of the opportunity to leverage everyone's work…one of the points that I wanted to make is from this day forward, I would like to have this group make some decisions based on commission, not omission. Everybody's working hard, but I don't think we're optimized."
The Software Solarium involved four panel discussions, targeting distinct lines of effort. Those lines of effort: Enabling a "More Defensible Network" by improving integration of software assurance and acquisition lifecycle activities; Driving Army-wide efficiencies in the software lifecycle to dramatically improve readiness, while reducing cost, risk, and complexity; Optimizing Army software development and sustainment oversight and policy; and Developing the optimal government and contractor workforce mix to maintain technology overmatch in the evolving and increasingly complex software environment.
The takeaways from these robust discussions included the need to establish a software "Center of Excellence" which could provide oversight of software development and maintenance across the Army; integration of the Army Cyber Command (ARCYBER) with the software enterprise; improving the ability to estimate Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for the software which is equipping the Army; and identifying which skillsets are important enough to require an organic capability and which ones that industry could compete for.
"At the end of the day everyone that participated was much more informed and gained further insights," Crawford explained. "As an outcome of this event we have set the stage to have a common dialogue about how to best position our Army to address these challenges and to help our Software Enterprise adapt to the new strategic realities of the next great frontier."
This Software Solarium was just the first of what is hoped to be many, with the next scheduled to coincide with the CECOM Advanced Planning Briefing to Industry (APBI), scheduled for late January or early February, 2017, and expanding the scope of the discussion to include industry partners.
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