iGouge

Category Archives: Geek Stuff

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Get the Gouge and build new solutions….

I just asked Siri when my next meeting is (3pm) scheduled, so I have a few minutes to blog on some recent meetings centered around our iGouge Machine Learning Projects.  Siri is a great example of natural language processing and how computers (machines) can begin to become part of our daily life (both at work and at home).  iGouge is working with government labs and systems integrators to promote the use of machine learning technology across several areas of research and development. I am reminded of my good friend and deeply respected ideas of Dr. Marv Langston on his blog discussing autonomy and future computers systems.

If you don’t have an Apple iPhone 4s yet, go get one and be one of the 37 million people that bought one over the last three months.  Siri introduces you to natural language processing and for those not old enough to remember LISP and artificial intelligence (AI), she begins to make us think of what machines can do within our government/federal projects.  By the way, I was a Google Android phone user for 3 years and have to admit that the iPhone 4S is a game changer.

So what is the Gouge Software Development Kit (SDK)?

First what is “gouge”.  I founded the company last year based on a few key trends happening in our world. One is “big data” or the situation surrounding all of us. We have too much information flowing into our computers, data centers, brains, eyes, yet still have to solve every day problems and “filter” or turn this information into knowledge.  In addition, most of this data is “unstructured”.  To add to the situation of “big data”, we also have a focus on computer network defense and cybersecurity.  How do we protect our networks? If we can’t protect our networks, then how do we protect our data?  How do we at least migrate to protecting data that is important to coming up with decisions or meeting our mission(s) or service level agreement(s).

Gouge was a term that I learned of at the Naval Academy. It is slang for “knowledge”  or cutting through the mounds of information to find exactly what you needed to know to pass a test, pass a flight lesson, or get past that mean (pain in the ass) upperclassman.  In the spirit of the apple revolution taking our world, I stuck an “i’ in front of “gouge”.  My wife hates the name (RL Phillips was named after her maiden name and did not sound like gouging out an eye!).

So the Gouge software development kit will be a tool/environment for integrators (both government and industry) to develop key applications around machine learning. Specifically, the technology is termed “biologically inspired intelligence”. It is analogous to a brain that is “unbiased” and can both be trained and untrained.

The technology transforms information into a generalized rule set and processing environment. Gouge is capable of multiple higher-order concept formation, i.e. it can learn new concepts by taking multiple layers of context information into account such as visual information structures in pictures or the whole range of lexical, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic context in text. These information structures are transformed into generalized rule sets, which can then be applied to further input facts.

Unlike other approaches, the Gouge SDK enables machines to learn with or without human supervision. The technology automatically generates a lightweight ontology (look that word up!) that detects all relationships among data elements. Learning occurs at the time data is ingested — so it is very fast compared to other approaches.

When incorporated into products as software or embedded as a chip solution (future release), Gouge enables solutions that feature new functions with large improvements in cost and performance.

The features and benefits of the holosemantic data space in combination with the mathematical approaches (math geek combined with free-thinker) are:

  • Self-optimized information processing
  • Self-controlled content organization
  • Multiple higher-order concept formation (multiple high order co-occurrence)
  • Autonomic learning via multiple context recognition (unsupervised machine learning)
  • Self-generalizing of learned concepts

There have been several projects around statistical models of machine learning and Gouge takes a very different approach.  The technology is based more on self-adapting or self-learning and focuses on being an un-biased “brain” that learns from the unstructured data (bits) that it is fed.  Today, the technology is focused on textual information (in any language). Future builds will support binary data and motion video.

Early projects have focused on bulding case studies for the technology and helping the customer understand that the  human needs a complimentary partner that can handle and process the large amounts of data that is being fed into our lives, enterprises, and overall decision making.  I look forward to graduate students (Georgia Tech, Naval Postgraduate, CMU,etc) coming up with ideas to make our government more efficient and secure.

Some ideas or thoughts to stimulate the application developers in the audience:

  • Analysis of twitter feeds. What knowledge can be obtained by monitoring the 140 character feed. Also, should we look at twitter fields as separated tidbits, or correlate and group them by author, geographic zone, etc.
  • Analysis of YouTube comments (Who would think to look at those silly comments)?
  • Future analysis of YouTube videos
  • Analysis of specific government documents to find duplication or contradictions. This could apply to DOD Policy documents, DIACAP/C&A documents, training documents, message traffic, etc.
  • Analysis of resumes or fitness reports to find trends or special capabilities in personnel. Finding trends in people, career paths, and to aid the human resources side of the government.
  • Analysis of Facebook post. (My recent cruise aboard the USS Carl Vinson in June 2011 showed me potential issues of allowing wide open use of facebook.  Fully understanding the “mood” of the ship’s crew via facebook post data can be valuable.
  • Analysis of open internet websites, blogs, pictures, etc
  • Understanding the range of machine learning. When is it best to use statistical models vs. association and self learning/un-learning.
  • Gouge applications running on computers that compliment the intel analyst on the watch floor.  This technology does not replace the human analyst, only complement and enhance the human planning and decision process.
  • Cuts thru human behavior and known cultural biases.  Supports a joint combined command by adding un-bias to the team of sailors, airman, marines, and soldiers. Makes purple more purple!
  • Helps support new concepts and ideas centered around planning and decision making in a more collaborative web 3.0 environment (over traditional command and control).

The role of the Gouge SDK is to be a catalyst to spawn a multitude of ideas, applications, and cost-effective development of solutions by today’s government and industry partnership.

Please send your ideas on possible applications and to learn more about helping you be successful to gouge@igouge.com.

 

 


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Rickover remembered

I just spent a few days in Honolulu at this year’s technet asia pacific show. I listened to a panel of DOD CIO’s discuss the upcoming budget cuts and the need to consolidate/cut spending on information technology. Do more with less, reduce duplication,etc. It reminded me of my initial proceedings article (where they give you a nice pen for getting published.

Looking for Another Rickover

 

Finding a Rickover for Information Technology

By Jim Pietrocini

As it enters a new age of information technology, the Navy must have a strong, committed information czar—a modern Admiral Hyman Rickover.

The bus ride seemed longer than the usual one-hour drive from Annapolis to Washington. I knew how to navigate the streets of the District to end up at my favorite weekend establishment in Georgetown, but that day we were headed to Crystal City. I looked out of the half-frozen bus window to see concrete buildings that seemed to be connected, with no sign of grass or trees. We were guided up the elevator and placed in a small sitting room. The interview process was about to begin.

I was about to join the ranks of hundreds of former midshipmen and have an interview with Admiral Hyman Rickover. It was 1980, and I was a proud member of the first U.S. Naval Academy class with female midshipman-a class that did not have enough nuclear power volunteers. Thus, a few hundred of us were selected as “involuntary” candidates, and though I had my heart set on going to Pensacola for flight school, my destiny now was in the hands of the famous father of the nuclear Navy.

Today’s Navy is entering a new century, where information warfare will play a role similar to that of nuclear power in the Rickover era. Downsizing, jointness, and interservice interoperability and communication are shaping our armed forces, but even greater than these internal forces are those of the information revolution that is engulfing our nation and our world. The introduction of the internet and the world-wide web, combined with telecommunications changes, is having a direct impact on how our Navy will operate beyond 2000.

The JOTS Paradigm

In the early 1990s, the Navy command-and-control community took a daring turn and moved toward commercial workstations and software standards and away from military-specification (MilSpec) computers and Defense specific programming languages. MilSpec computers on board our aircraft carriers were replaced with UNIX-based client-server workstations connected via a local area network (LAN). Some said that a prototype system developed by a small group of mathematicians riding Atlantic and Pacific Fleet units could not become the Navy’s baseline for information systems. The success of the Joint Operational Tactical System (JOTS) was the result, in part, of the leadership of a few senior Navy officers overseeing the hard work of a cohesive team of Navy labs and contractors.

Today, the Navy, under the management of the Space and Naval Warfare Command, is developing the future Joint Maritime Command Information System (JMCIS) and the Joint Maritime Communications System architectures. Navy ships will have local area networks of PC- and UNIX-based computers (client/server) connected via routers and bridges to the Navy’s own intranet, connecting the fleets together. A sailor on the USS Nimitz (CVN-68) will browse for the plan of the day on the carrier’s home page and see when he has the midwatch. The engineering officer of the watch will check the engineering department intranet to review the status of casualty reports and then connect to the Atlantic Fleet logistics page to check the arrival date of a main feed pump being shipped to the next port. The crew will be able to log on to less expensive network computers in their berthing spaces to send e-mail-including graphics, sound, and video-back to loved ones in the states.

Riding the Commercial Technology Wave

To support the architecture of JMCIS and other systems, the Navy must align itself with commercial industry; it must keep pace with commercial technology and provide leadership to integrate it within the bulkheads of our ships and walls of our command centers. Key to these efforts will be keeping abreast of what is going on in the computer industry with respect to operating systems, hardware architectures, development languages, browsers, data bases, etc., and being able to correlate technological movement by the computer industry and how companies are measured from a business standpoint. A very good example is the case of Apple and Microsoft. Apple had the best graphic user interface built on top of the Apple operating system, but failed to distribute the technology. Microsoft had the DOS and Windows operating system, and today owns a majority of the personal productivity market because of its ability to bundle the DOS operating system with various versions of PCs.

The Navy Chief Information Officer

A chief information officer (CIO) pipeline similar to what we have in the nuclear Navy is essential. Enlisted training should begin in boot camp. A good start is today’s effort to give every recruit a new computer upon entering the Navy.

The CIO billet should be established alongside the ship’s chief engineer, operations officer, and weapons officer. In a squadron or group, it should be parallel to the chief staff officer. The CIO’s background should include a computer science or key technical degree, and the career path should allow for the development of applied computer science skills. The way I learned to be an engineering officer of the watch was by having my boiler technician hand me a flashlight and tell me to find and trace every valve in the 600-pound steam system.

Today’s nuclear Navy is better off because it had a strong leader at the top, a leader who upheld values and provided consistent guidelines when social and political factors weighed heavy. Information technology needs discipline to mold it into an architecture that can be used to guide mission-critical systems and applications, update status of forces, and aid our naval forces in harm’s way. It needs a flag officer who can provide direction to our future enlisted personnel and junior and senior officers and can communicate with the leadership of our commercial industries.

Final Note

After I was questioned by a few officers about the pH factor and the delicacy of differential equations, Rickover asked me, “What does your last name mean in Italian?” I had no idea. The admiral quickly responded, “GET OUT of my office!” I did not appreciate the experience then, but now I understand the need for such determined leadership in our Navy.

Mr. Pietrocini, a 1980 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, is a director of government programs for a commercial software company headquartered in Carlsbad, California.

 

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NGEN should start listening to Pandora!

The Software as a Service  (SaaS) Model is quickly becoming a key driver for companies that are migrating their business to take advantage of internet technologies.  A key attribute of the SaaS model is the overall economics (i.e. cost savings) that comes with the adoption of this internet centric capability.

A parody on Software as a Service and the US Navy

The beginning of this blog has to discuss a simple analogy of what the Navy is going thru over the past few years in the area of enterprise solutions. Since we are in the middle of a financial crisis, I could not help being amazed that Apple Computer has over $75B in cash on hand, more than 3x what the United States has available.  So, please excuse the Apple infested story to follow, but it is fair to say that the music industry is leading the evolution of moving from product licensing to service subscription models.   This large industrial segment of our economy is having the same cultural roadblocks/restrictions that the Navy will go thru with a mind shift from product licensing to service subscription licensing (and we will not forget about the security piece).

First, let me introduce you to Commander Nimitz (fictional character).  Cdr. Nimitz has over the past 5-6 years blended in with our civilian society and owns two classic iPods, and iPod touch, MacBook pro, and recently bought an iPad2.  He is an avid runner and works out 4 times a week at the base gym.  He started out in the “enterprise”, by going to Tower Records in Pt. Loma and buying Music CD’s every weekend.  He would take the CD’s home and listen to them on his stereo or in his car.

Do you remember these “pre-iPod” devices

Each CD was between $9-$15.  It is probably fair that Cmdr. Nimitz and most people can fill several boxes of CDs that have been purchased over the past 20-25 years.  I will not go into the life of Admiral Smith, who has boxes and boxes of Albums, 8 Track tapes, and Tape Cassettes. (that is another legacy discussion).  Back to Cdr. Nimitz.  A few years ago, he was an early adopter of iTunes and also spent his duty days, burning his CD collection to his iTunes library (thus allowing his legacy CD collection of tunes to be played on his collection of iPods.  In recent years, he has not purchased one CD from the store and does not even use his CD player in his car.   He migrated from CDs to purchasing songs via the iTunes store at 99 cents a song or an entire album for $9.99. Better yet, he did not have to buy the complete album, but only had to buy those songs that he wanted to listen to on his iPod (don’t forget this when we thing of how much we use all those features of MS Office).  Cmdr. Nimitz checked his apple account a few weeks ago and he had spent over two thousand dollars in iTunes purchases over the past two years.  Some of the songs he had purchased in 2005 were very rarely played (remember Mariah Carey).

How many CDs do you still play?

 

 

 

Six months ago, Cdr. Nimitz opened up an account with Pandora.

 

The service was free and he could listen any kind of music he wished. For an annual rate of $36 he could get the improved subscription (better sound quality, no commercials, etc.).  He would now listen to music on his iTouch via Pandora.  He did not give up his iTunes subscription, but he has noticed that over the past few months, Pandora meets about 80% of his needs and when he needs to reach back and play a favorite song or album, he will go to his iTunes library.

*We will see a heterogeneous mix of subscription cloud based services to compliment legacy client/server solutions.

Since Cdr. Nimitz was stationed at SPAWAR for 3 years in PMW 170, I have to discuss the Navy world of “limited bandwidth”.   Cmdr. Nimitz loves to listen to Pandora at his condo. He connects his iTouch to his stereo system and threads Pandora songs thru his 802.11 WiFi via his 15MB TimeWarner Cable Modem connection (that he pays $39.99/month).  There are bandwidth and data download limitations when he is using his iPhone via the cellular network, since he has a 5GB limit/month.  Those data plans are kind of like those Inmarsat bills handed to the Navy battle groups (plug for future KaBand Spot Beam technology i.e. Viasat 1).

Cdr. Nimitz has started to change his purchasing habits away from buying songs via iTunes and is starting to use the Pandora Service. Also, he hardly ever goes to Blockbuster to rent a movie. (Oh yeah, they went bankrupt and the local Blockbuster store is becoming a Sushi/Fish restaurant).  Cdr. Nimitz loves his $7.99/month Netflix SUBSCRIPTION rate.

He can stream a movie (limited selection, but it is growing) instantaneously and is not stuck with late fees or a collection of DVDs (don’t forget to dust the DVD cabinet).

End of parody…..

The Navy should identify and study those enterprises that are taking advantage of the “subscription-based” service model.   The initial applications to discuss are email services and the NGEN program should take a hard look at the Google Mail pilot being conducted out of SSC Atlantic.   Pilot programs are great ways to introduce new technologies and cost effective business models. The future NGEN enterprise should use these products to gain a full understanding of their capabilities and limitations.  I plan to blog about this in more detail, but here is a short assessment via bullet list, of using Google Business Aps for the past 18 months and continuing to live and work within the Navy environment (as a contractor around SPAWAR/Navy commands):

  • No need to purchase any hardware (exchange server) or pay for the labor cost of an IT engineer to setup Exchange 2007/2010
  • No need to have sufficient bandwidth in my office to host an exchange server (in fact, using 4G MiFi is very cont-effective over a Bonded T-3 contract).
  • Deal with security around hosting a server in the office.
  • Deal with power/electrical loss at the office. Hello Irene!
  • Did not have to purchase MS Exchange license.
  • Costs-, $50 dollars /year for a Google Business App subscription which included    
    • 25GB of Space for email/documents, etc.
    • Full access to other Google Services such as Google Docs, Calendar, Tasks, Google Sites, Full implementation of anti-virus/spam filtering
    • Ability to share documents/co- edit /comment on documents- essentially a better solution than Sharepoint (no  cost to implement/procure sharepoint
    • On the negative side, The Navy is very Microsoft Centric (use to Powerpoint, Outlook, Sharepoint (to some degree).  As the weeks go by, Google is building more Microsoft supported solutions (Google Synch, etc).
    • Google Apps motivates a group to collaborate (vice what I see with implementing around Sharepoint  (mostly due to a lack of building out the correct webparts on Sharepoint and a leadership push to collaborate via portals vice “just email it to me”.

Other subscription applications to investigate include:

Evernote- a great cloud application for sharing notes, audio, video, images on all your devices

 

 

Dropbox- great file sharing in the cloud

 

 

Basecamp- great cloud sharing application and easier to install and use than Sharepoint.

 

 

 

Current Navy efforts related to Software as a Service

The Navy should investigate/collaborate with the following projects/programs that would support a better understanding of the benefit and cost savings from Software as a Service implementation.

Trident Warrior 11- Asset Management/Situational Assessment

PEO C4I/PMW 790 demonstrated the use of BMC/Remedy technology during the recent Trident Warrior. The focus by the Navy, primarily 10th Fleet on Situational Assessment of the Navy networks, requires the ability to fully grasp the number of assets (devices) that the Navy currently own/operates on their set of federated networks (NMCI, three variations of One-Net, afloat backbone, NAVFAC, BUMED enterprise, etc.  This blogger encourages the evaluation of the results of Trident Warrior and will push the Navy leadership to develop an overall plan on what solution could be integrated into the Navy networks.  As with most program solutions, we are most familiar with traditional client/server hardware/software solutions that are acquired thru traditional licensing.  The Navy pays for a license per seat or cost per server (that supports a set number of client licenses.  In some cases, the Navy enters into an Enterprise License Agreement (ELA) with the vendor.  History has shown that these ELAs tend to be not fully defined or have an open-ended term  (i.e. contract/ELA for x number of years, does or does not include annual maintenance, does not include certain upgrades or plug-ins, etc.)

The introduction of web or cloud applications adds a new dimension to the way the Navy can solve their enterprise requirements:

  • Help Desk: The Navy has a federated collection of Remedy licenses and CMDB databases.  It is recommended that Service-Now’s new SaaS model be investigated and evaluated in comparison with other Help Desk and ITSM solutions (i.e. CA’s tool, Open Source Xenoss, etc). In addition, BMC has a SaaS business model.
  • ITSM- Investigate the Service Now feature sets (provided as cloud services).
  • The ability to place the Service Now services within a private/hybrid NGEN Cloud.  The Service Now solution is not
  • Security: We cannot have a discussion about solutions today without having a concrete focus on the impact that the cybersecurity threat has had and will continue to have with our Navy networks.  I was involved in the “Sweet 16” project to provide increase security to the NMCI networks.  When SaaS is involved, the Navy must fully understand the issues and mindset changes with security (or trust) of the cloud application.  It should be noted that this cloud service could come from a public or private (or even hybrid cloud).  The Google Navy pilot has done some work with DIACAP/FISMA compliance of the Google Cloud.

SSC Pacific providing an ITSM Service

The E2C lab at Spawar Systems Center- Pacific in San Diego is currently hosting the CMDB for the NMCI Program.  This raises some good thoughts on future Navy Enterprise Services and how Software as a Service could play a key role.

  • Initiate the discussion and analysis around hybrid cloud services.  The Navy entertains the thought of using DISA Enterprise services for such things as email/exchange services.  In this case, a Navy Echelon Three could support a hybrid cloud/data center (government facility supported by government/contractor personnel) that would provide a key enterprise service in the area of ITSM/Help Desk/Asset Management (note asset management is a key first step in having a grasp on Situational Assessment (SA).   The Navy first needs know that devices/assets they have on their enterprise(s) network(s).
  • Shifted customer focus from total performance management to performance metrics
  • Improved accountability and traceability of IT service budgets/assets

Benefits of SaaS Model and effect on Navy Enterprise Networks

 

SaaS Value Proposition

 

Defining SaaS in the Navy Enterprise.

The words “Software as a Service” very aptly define a new model of selling software.  You buy the software as an online service, paying for just what you need as you need it.  You sign up for the service with an annual or monthly fee (typically based on the number of users), and you then go online to use it.  Instead of purchasing the software for an up-front license fee, and then paying 18-22% of this per year for maintenance, you pay a recurring fee forever (typically 20-30% higher than licensed maintenance).

The important word in this definition is the word “service.”  While the real product you are buying is software, you do not “purchase it” and “own it” – rather you are buying a service agreement, which includes commitments from the provider to deliver features and capabilities, up-time, storage, network bandwidth, ongoing support, upgrades, and a wide variety of configuration and data options.  You expect the solution to have various tools, such as the ability to load HR records, the ability to connect it to other systems (through a rich set of programming interfaces), the ability to customize the workflow and look and branding, and the ability to develop a wide range of ad-hoc and periodic reports.

Additionally, instead of owning the software and running it in your own IT shop, you are now part of a community of customers using the software.  Today modern SaaS vendors help you connect to this community online, by accessing support, peer groups, shared content, and in the case of recruiting even shared job candidates.

The SaaS model is quite different from licensed software:  you have little or no IT costs;  you do not need to worry about software upgrades;  and the vendor takes responsibility for ongoing support, service, and protection of your data.  From the vendor’s standpoint SaaS is an excellent business model:   while they must invest in a re-engineered product and more hardware infrastructure, they develop software on a single platform and avoid the problem of multiple development teams working on multiple versions of the product.

Recommendation: SaaS Licensing Model.  Compare the difference in licensing costs between traditional client/server or current Enterprise License Agreements (ELA) and how ELA’s are defined.

What considerations lead to this recommendation? For example, the Service Now licensing model is based not on the number of users in the enterprise, but the number of actual people that use the service (more details can be found at their website).

Recommendation: SaaS Reduction in Engineering Services/Consulting Services.  Implementing a SaaS solution reduces the amount of engineering services needed to setup, install, and support the required solution.

What considerations lead to this recommendation? The Navy spends considerable amount of time and money to setup traditional enterprise software solutions. Hardware is required to be procured, proper configuration, STIG/IAVA Compliance, etc.

Recommendation: SaaS Additional Features.  Adopting the SaaS model provides extra benefits/applications that are gained from other clients/end-user features that are added to the total solution.

What considerations lead to this recommendation? As a user of Google Business Apps, iGouge sees the value of when Google Docs or Google Mail add’s new features. There is no software to load, update. The features just appear. Google also provides a “Lab” area to which specific widgets/apps can be tested prior to ‘Turning on’ for the complete enterprise.

Recommendation: SaaS Licensing Model.  SaaS and Cloud will cause political/business transformation issues with the NGEN program.

What considerations lead to this recommendation? The Navy has past examples of not wanting to adopt new business models or processes due to the negative impact it will have on the current workforce.  The Navy should consider the transformation or change management that will be involved in migrating to the SaaS or cloud business model. Security (or Trust) is an area that needs to be discussed in depth.

Final Curtain

 

During a recent underway period with a strike group, it was very clear that the Navy was evolving to a more SaaS model. The ADNS increment 3 technology allowed a 10MB pipe to the ship, allowing the staff/crew to access SaaS like services (Defense Travel System, Facebook, Gmail, etc). To some degree, one could call the “chat” application a SaaS like application (at least its peer to peer architecture).  The bandwidth will increase (as mentioned with the onslaught of KaBand solutions, which will make the overall SaaS model more interesting in the Navy enterprise.

 

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Crimping RJ-45 connectors

I am reminded of long days running ethernet cable thru bulkheads on USS Coronado and USS Kitty Hawk to get the OTH-T broadcast from jots1 (the name of the JMCIS/GCCS-M comms processor) to the Navy Integrated Tactical Environmental Subsystem (NITES) down in OA division (the weather office).

Making RJ 45 connectors and doing the pin out was an art (or was that science !).

Fast forward almost 20 years later and I am sitting at the Space and Naval Warfare Command (PEO C4I offices) with my Verizon Thunderbolt and an iPad.  I am reading my business email by turning the Thunderbolt into a 4G hotspot (allows up to 8 connections). I am getting about 17MBs download and 5-7MBs upload.


Why would I ever connect to the wired network?

In fact, support contractors on-site are not paying for NMCI seats and opting for Verizon 4G mifi cards and a laptop (and bringing their own wireless printer). Instant Office at a very nice price.


The great technologies provided by Verizon are changing how we think about the future of Local Area Networks.

The wireless LAN has become a core, strategic network for tomorrows enterprise?


The future growth of smart phones and tablets will force wireless networks to become just as important as wired networks.

We cannot hide behind “lack of security” or “old culture”.

My old office paid $700/month for a T-3 bonded internet connection (old DSL). I get 7 times faster bandwidth at home on my timewarner cable modem (22MBs down for $59.00 /month). Most remote offices are paying over $200/month for T-1 (1.5MBs) as this tends to be the standard company policy for remote offices (The Navy has several remote recruiting offices, reserve commands, and detachments that could be re-architected for the Next Generation Enterprise  Network.

The upcoming Next Generation Enteprise Network (NGEN) should push for wireless 4G networks to be key parts of Naval Base infrastructure and be a alternative pipe to carry secure packets of information.

 

From a recent blog… (see the complete blog at slashdot)

Aberdeen’s surveys show that 82 percent of companies already have smartphones on their wireless LANs and 75 percent have tablets, compared to 95 percent that have laptops, and by spring 2012, 100 percent expect to have laptops in use on their wireless LANs, 99 percent to have smartphones, and 96 percent to have tablets.

But exports says those are just the tip of the iceberg of what is running on wireless LANs these days. Companies report the following types of devices already in use on their wireless networks:

  • 43 percent have wireless printers, expected to rise to 56 percent by spring 2012
  • 38 percent have e-book readers, expected to rise to 49 percent
  • 32 percent have bar code scanners, expected to rise to 42 percent
  • 32 percent have asset tracking systems, expected to rise to 43 percent
  • 31 percent have video surveillance, expected to rise to 44 percent
  • 30 percent have video monitors, expected to rise to 47 percent
  • 29 percent have videconferencing, expected to rise to 52 percent
  • 25 percent have inventory systems, expected to rise to 38 percent
  • 20 percent have digital still cameras, expected to rise to 28 percent
  • 19 percent have entertainment systems, expected to rise to 25 percent
  • 17 percent have gaming systems, expected to rise to 21 percent
  • 12 percent have heating and air conditioning (HVAC systems), expected to rise to 19 percent
  • 9 percent have electric meters, expected to rise to 19 percent
  • 6 percent have appliances, expected to rise to 12 percent

Most of these devices are used for mission-critical activities, yet most wireless LANs aren’t designed to be mission-critical,

As is often the case, those companies that have taken a strategic view of their wireless LANs — centrally managing them as part of the core LAN, not as a separate network from the wired LAN — are both getting better performance than the rest. They typically have twice or more the performance across a series of measures, including problem resolution time (3:1), application response time (2:1), end-to-end wireless LAN performance (3:1), and end-to-end LAN performance (2:1).

Most wireless LANs aren’t actively managed, even using basic technologies such as Wi-Fi sniffers and the WIPS intrusion prevention protocol, so companies have no strong clue as to who or what is using them. That raises security problems of course, but it also brings up network management issues such as understanding usage patterns to be able to manage the wireless LAN and the wired backbone supporting it for quality of service (QoS).

How to rethink your wireless LAN

First, manage it centrally with your wired LAN. In fact, treat the two as one LAN, both in terms of management tools and the people you have manage and run them. Bringing together wired and wireless experts not only allows for a better designed and managed network, it usually reduces costs.  Bringing together the networks does not mean having to standardize on one vendor’s technology, he notes — many network management tools are designed to manage vendor heterogeneity, whch he says is a natural consequence of growth and acquisition and so should be assumed in your management tool choices.

The management should not just be of the technology but of the policies around access and utilization. Prioritize access based on both applications and type of users: critical applications such as your transaction and unified communication applications should get priority over noncritical ones, such as Web access and perhaps some intranet services.

Likewise, users who rely on wireless access for work that directly matters to your economics — such as field workers and sales staff — should get priority over users for whom wireless access is a nice-to-have extra. Implement a “fair use” strategy that doesn’t let individual people or applications hog network resources — and ensure the network is designed for the legitimate hogs, as their appetites will only grow.

Second, implement 802.11n networks wherever possible. They carry more data than the 802.11b and 802.11g networks commonly installed, and they tend to have larger range. Borg suggests companies experiencing bottlenecks at the wireless edge invest in a “forklift” upgrade of their wireless equipment to 802.11n and that companies invest in doing the radio analysis to understand how best to deploy the access points and routers; not doing so can create bottlenecks that reduce the performance of the entire network. He also says it’s critical to beef up the backbone, so you don’t transfer performance bottlenecks from the wireless edge into the wired core.

Third, be sure to actively monitor your network not just for security purposes but for performance, so you can adjust both network resources and utilization policies as needed for the optimal result (what Borg calls “quality of experience”). Because what is optimal can change over time, Borg says it’s important to keep analyzing your network over time, not just when you first decide to rework it.

None of Aberdeen’s advice is particularly novel: It’s what IT should do for any important asset. But many IT organizations didn’t consider Wi-Fi to be important and did just a “good enough” deployment. The world has changed, and it’s time to reclassify the wireless LAN as a key information technology asset — and manage it accordingly. You’ll get a better network and lower costs if you do.

This article, “Spurred by mobile, rethinking the wireless LAN,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com.

 

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Security trends in 2011

Good brief from RSA. Need to fwd to middle of audio (first part is blank). Also if you can stand his voice.

Thoughts:
Hacktivism
Flash MOBS – need to see you tube video (Frozen Crowd in Grand Central Station). Social Media can easily promote hactivism.
Stuxnet- opened up the issues of embedded device security
Clarity around SLA’s in Cloud Computing Security. (i.e Wikileaks being hosted on Amazon,etc).
collatoral risk- does risk increase or decrease by moving to clouds (more rigorous risk mgmt around shared services).
M&A; in the security market. Security will be baked into normal product solutions (HP buys Fortify, Intel buys McAfee, etc.