Global Interoperability Consortium’s Cloud Computing Project

Managing and disseminating the rapidly increasing amount of geospatial data will be a huge challenge for governments and civilians responding to the world’s next big disaster, Eric Vollmecke of the Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC) told 350 global leaders at the NATO Network Enabled Capability conference held in Lisbon, Portugal, April 23-25.
«From an operational perspective, there is an insatiable appetite for overhead imagery to build situational awareness. Currently, platforms keep growing to collect and disseminate the necessary information. This information is not timely in its response, it’s unwieldy in its deployment and it lacks the flexibility to enable cross-domain interoperability,» said Vollmecke. «Unless we get our arms around all of this, the amount of data will be overwhelming and we will miss precious days trying to get the right information to the right international stakeholders so they can do their work and not sit waiting on the sidelines.»

Eric Vollmecke of the Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium reports

the proliferation of geospatial information will pose problems for disaster

responders and describes a project designed to move critical data more

efficiently using an open cloud-based infrastructure

WASHINGTON, April 30, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Managing and
disseminating the rapidly increasing amount of geospatial data will be a
huge challenge for governments and civilians responding to the world’s
next big disaster, Eric Vollmecke of the Network Centric Operations
Industry Consortium (NCOIC) told 350 global leaders at the NATO Network
Enabled Capability conference held in Lisbon, Portugal, April 23-25.

«From an operational perspective, there is an insatiable appetite for
overhead imagery to build situational awareness. Currently, platforms
keep growing to collect and disseminate the necessary information. This
information is not timely in its response, it’s unwieldy in its
deployment and it lacks the flexibility to enable cross-domain
interoperability,» said Vollmecke. «Unless we get our arms around all of
this, the amount of data will be overwhelming and we will miss precious
days trying to get the right information to the right international
stakeholders so they can do their work and not sit waiting on the
sidelines.»

Vollmecke said the use of a cloud computing environment will improve
the ability to quickly share critical information between nations and
non-governmental organizations. He described the Cloud Concept and
Demonstration project that NCOIC is working on for the National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).

The NGA project is a collaborative effort by NCOIC and its
member-companies to show the interoperability and movement of data in an
open cloud-based infrastructure. NGA is providing unclassified data
that supports a scenario depicting the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The
project builds on a series of successful lab interoperability
demonstrations based on Haiti that NCOIC conducted in 2010.

«In Haiti, we collected a huge amount of data compared to the
Tasmanian tsunami of 2004. Tomorrow the amount of data could be 100 fold
and one organization alone will not be able to manage the inputs,» said
Vollmecke, who is also a major general in the U.S. Air National Guard
and, while on active duty, commanded two airlift wings during the 2010
Haitian crisis. «With the NGA community cloud project, NCOIC is testing a
collaborative, real-time environment that has both suppliers and
consumers of data at different security levels.»

Information technology solutions provider NJVC is serving as team
leader of the NGA project and participants include Boeing, The Aerospace
Corporation and Open Geospatial Consortium. «NCOIC has assembled a team
you would not normally see on a government-led project,» Vollmecke told
the NATO audience. «Using a consortium is the most rapid and effective
way to facilitate the advancement and deployment of technology. The
parties can set aside their traditional roles and aren’t subject to the
contractual and legal walls that typically are put up between government
and contractors. The exchange of information and ideas is more
free-flowing.»

Vollmecke, who is NCOIC program director, reported that Cycle One of
the NGA project is complete and the cloud infrastructure has been
defined and built, with the team establishing standards and processes,
utilizing best practices, and addressing potential problems such as
ownership, bandwidth, latency, availability, access and security.

In Cycle Two, set to begin in May, NCOIC member-companies will test
out the infrastructure. They will function as «actors» — information
consumers and providers like police, firefighters, rescue workers,
medical personnel, etc. — who plug into the clouds and use the
geospatial data to activate unique, sometimes proprietary, applications
that demonstrate end-user capabilities.

«The key is to have a core or resident capability in the cloud that
can be rapidly expanded on demand, when there is an event or disaster,»
said Vollmecke. «This will free up intelligence analysts to work their
problems, while putting geospatial information into the hands of other
users. Cloud technology can improve everyone’s capability and
effectiveness, while reducing cost, time and risk.»

About NCOIC

The Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium’s core capability
is enabling cross-domain interoperability among and between such areas
as aerospace, civil and military operations, air traffic management,
health care and more. NCOIC is a global not-for-profit organization with
more than 60 members representing 12 countries. It has an eight-year
history of developing net-centric skills and tools that help its members
and customers to operate effectively across diverse global market
sectors and domains. For more information, visit www.ncoic.org

SOURCE Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium

/Web site: www.ncoic.org