Booz Allen’s Expertise in Information Sharing: A Critical Asset Supporting Today’s Warfighter

Rapid, secure, and smart use of networks is crucial to a winning strategy on the battlefield.

The way we use information has changed the way we fight wars, says Booz Allen Hamilton vice president Art Fritzson.

Art Fritzson

Today, warfare is driven network on network, not force on force, Fritzson said at the annual Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) SPACECOMM event held earlier this year. Aligned with the forum’s theme, “Empowering the Warfighter with Knowledge across the Domains,” he said that the rules of warfare have changed, alliances are constantly shifting, and friends can turn into foes overnight—depending on how information is used.

“Whether campaigns are fought on the battlefield or across political landscapes during a presidential race, outcomes are determined not just by valor and commitment, but by each campaign’s abilities to harvest, distribute, and—most importantly—use information in real time to create a competitive advantage,” Fritzson said.

“The enemy may be decentralized, but they are networked by a common overall goal,” he added. “The best way to defeat them may be through similar use of our own networks, supported but unconstrained by traditional top-down command and control.”

Clients in defense, homeland security, and throughout the federal government are increasingly turning to Booz Allen for the firm’s crucial expertise in designing the systems and infrastructure they need to use information in a timely way. A frequent speaker at SPACECOMM, Fritzson is recognized as a thought leader, skillful at articulating Booz Allen’s developments in information sharing to support government and military efforts at home and abroad.

At SPACECOMM this year, Fritzson used the presidential primaries as an example of another way Americans are witnessing the impact of information. In political campaigns, he said, the focus is on providing the right information in a timely manner to a large, geographically dispersed network of staffers, reporters, volunteers, and influential allies.

Candidates must know which congressman will endorse the candidate, the local party favorites and what’s motivating them, and much more. The way that data is collected, analyzed, and used by the campaigns will play a vital role in determining which candidate wins the party’s nomination and ultimately, the presidency.

“Political campaigns need agility, flexibility, and speed,” said Fritzson. “Information is key—accurate, current, and available immediately. Whether it’s the candidate or the warfighter, whoever can best use information will shape the battlefield, and win.”

“The Integrator’s Integrator”

Fritzson maintains that the best political candidates—like the best warfighters and those who support them—share three fundamental beliefs about information:

• Real-time access to accurate intelligence wins the day
• Whether military or political, wars are won with a full, complete picture of the battlefield
• Stovepiping of information benefits only the enemy

“Both candidates and warfighters need to be smart on a wide range of issues and activities whose level of importance is constantly shifting,” he says.

One example of how Booz Allen works with clients to develop information-sharing solutions is its support of both a military program and a principal DoD intelligence advisor on a solution that integrates several armed services programs.

“For one project, Booz Allen is integrating 13 stovepiped intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) Programs of Record (PORs) that span several intelligence domains,” says vice president Greg Wenzel. “This system must have joint interoperability with the larger ISR community, including the other armed services, national agencies, and coalition forces.”

Greg Wenzel

To accomplish this goal, Booz Allen developed a unique framework that creates an open architecture based on a service-oriented architecture (SOA). This enables program managers and contractors to access the integrated network independent of any one specific technology platform or system. Because the Booz Allen SOA approach is based on open community standards, it will never max out, is scalable to the network, and enables clients to adapt to changing mission needs.

This solution is called “net-centric” because it provides real data instantly and can connect anywhere. Integration is the key to net-centricity, e.g., one branch of the military must be able to connect to the data of another, regardless of the systems’ underlying technology infrastructure, including hardware, software, or data structures.

“Net-centricity is an oxymoron,” says Wenzel, “because there is no center to a network. As we were developing net-centric solutions for this project, we realized that to create a network of services, we had to start with the interface specifications that create the information-sharing network. Then we can pick the best-of-breed product or legacy program that fits the specifications, eliminating proprietary, stovepiped solutions.”

The SOA makes actionable information available quickly to the clients. Actionable information is data that can be acted upon, and is the strongest component of decision support. Actionable information is then processed into actionable intelligence, i.e., the necessary information immediately available to address the situation at hand, and an action plan is developed.

“To support the DoD advisor, Booz Allen is doing SOA at the ‘higher’ level required by this comprehensive solution,” Wenzel says. “We’re creating the framework that will enable program managers to connect to the enterprise easier, faster, and cheaper. This helps our clients get the right information to the warfighter in a timely manner.”

The results: Collaboration across the services has already substantially increased.

Says Wenzel, “Booz Allen is defining the integrating architecture that ties all these systems together. We’ve become known as the Integrator’s Integrator.”

story posted May 28, 2008