Army officials continue push for system consolidation

By Todd FogleJuly 19, 2010

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Army News Service, July 19, 2010) -- Army officials continue to push for a consolidation of network systems to run on a single common operating environment and for network efficiency across the service.

Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson, the Army's chief information officer and G-6, spoke in July about unity of effort to consolidate Army networks during a forum hosted by the Association of the United States Army, Institute of Land Warfare.

"We are moving to an enterprise effort across all elements in terms of this thing we call the network for the Army," Sorenson said.

In June, during the Institute for Defense and Government Affairs, Command and Control Summit, Mike Eixenberger, deputy director for LandWarNet, said consolidation of network systems can reduce a Soldier's burden. He said Soldier sometimes carries as much as 100 pounds of gear. Consolidation of communications gear could reduce that load, he said.

During his presentation, Eixenberger also showed a diagram that illustrated the complexity of Army network systems. Based on the diagram, he concluded it would be "very crowded" in a Humvee. Network consolidation would reduce that crowding as well.

Changing from a "system approach" to an "application approach" is one way the Army wants to proceed. What is called a system, should work on a common operating environment, much like applications on mobile devices.

This spring, the Army G-6 held the "Apps for the Army" challenge that allowed active Army, National Guard, Reserve and civilians to develop those kinds of applications for a variety of environments. Sorenson said there were 53 applications developed. Winners of that contest will be announced at the LandWarNet Conference in August.

LandWarNet, the Army's portion of the Global Information Grid, is made of several layers.