Thursday, January 21, 2016
The U.S. Army fielding upgrades for its tactical communications network, Warfighter Information Network-Tactical Increment 1 (WIN-T), which increases readiness, security and capability while reducing equipment by a third for a more powerful and expeditionary current and future force. The WIN-T network delivers high-speed, high-capacity voice, video and data communications to U.S. Army, Army Reserve and National Guard units even in the most austere locations. It is the tactical network connectivity backbone for other networked communication systems and mission command applications.
The Army began fielding the WIN-T Increment 1 Tactical Network upgrades in October 2014 and continues to field all WIN-T Increment 1 equipped units, including, most recently, to U.S. forces stationed in Europe. The service expects to complete fielding WIN-T Increment 1 across the force in calendar year 2017. The WIN-T Increment 1 Tactical Network Upgrades replace aging outdated equipment, such as routers, switches, servers and firewalls that are going end-of-life, while simultaneously providing enhanced capability. The upgrade’s virtualization enables the Army to reduce the number of required WIN-T Increment 1 transit cases by one third, shedding 1,000 cases across the Army and reducing the weight of the remaining cases.
The Army will continue to modernize the WIN-T Increment 1 network equipment and each baseline will introduce slightly different hardware and more advanced capability as they become available. Future enhancements include additional software-based capability such as virtual firewalls.
The WIN-T family of systems provides a single holistic connectivity capability to the Soldier on the battlefield, and the Army will continue to provide capability enhancements to this holistic network system, while reducing complexity to make it easier for Soldiers to use.
The WIN-T Increment 1 Tactical Network Upgrades reduce size, weight and power by combining both new and existing capabilities onto consolidated virtualized servers. The reduction in hardware frees up strategic lift, saves space for other critical items and reduces Soldier burden, supporting a more expeditionary force and posturing units for improved operational readiness. Since these upgrades expand server and storage capability, they also support future Network Convergence Operations, Common Operating Environment, and software convergence initiatives.
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