Robust Network May Enable Network Centric Warfare

However, providing this kind of on-demand information worldwide requires a network with enormous bandwidth. The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has asked SAIC to help it build such a network, a state-of-the-art optical mesh network with extremely fast — 10 billion bits a second — information transmission rates.

This optical network — the global information grid-bandwidth expansion (GIG-BE) network — will serve as the terrestrial support backbone for voice, video, imagery, and data traffic for all Department of Defense (DoD), national security, and intelligence community missions in wartime and peacetime.

This means that warfighters and analysts alike will be able to quickly access and post intelligence. In fact, GIG-BE will connect roughly 90 key intelligence, command, and operational locations. (GIG-BE will replace part of the backbone of the Defense Information System Network, an optical network with transmission rates of 2.4 billion bits a second.)

As a top priority information technology program for the DoD, GIG-BE is a key part of the vision to transform U.S. forces to a network centric platform. (Network centric warfare represents warfighting concepts and military capabilities that allow warfighters to take advantage of all available information and bring it to bear in a rapid and flexible manner. This offers the potential to increase warfighting capabilities by orders of magnitude.)

As the DISA support contractor, SAIC is helping to integrate and implement GIG-BE and will, ultimately, operate this next generation command and control Internet Protocol network.

In addition to network operations and management, our role includes managing the evaluation and procurement of hardware and software. (SAIC has negotiated contracts on about $300 million of equipment and has conducted rigorous hardware stabilization testing of single best solutions in each of four equipment technologies after the U.S. government accepted SAIC's proposed system solution.)

This positions us as a leading independent evaluator for other large, highly complex information technology programs.

Related Information

• National Security
• Systems Integration
• Cybersecurity and Physical Security
• Information Technology