The keynote address of the 2010 ACS Canberra Branch Conference was presented by Matt Yannopoulos, CTO, Department of Defence on 25 March 2010 in Canberra. Before his presentation I chatted with Matt, who confessed to me he wasn't a blogger, but the Chief of Army was. Matt is leading the development of the Defence ICT architecture. This fits with the "Defence White Paper 2009", "Defence Capability Plan 2009" and "Defence Reform Program 2009". There are ICT plans and military specific ones, such as for network centric warfare. The interesting part in all this is that Matt was taking about the business of the organisation, which is defence, and how IT supports this. The CTO is only responsible for about half the IT in Defence, with the other half being embedded in military systems. Use of "thin client" in is one way to save money and get control of desktops.

Matt pointed out that Defence is the this largest telco in Australia, behind Telstra and Optus. He confessed Defence has a printer for every three people and many thousands of applications to be rationalised. He mentioned problems with the defence pay system last year (when at Defence I helped cancel two successive pay system projects).

The plan for the future is that the CTO will provide the communications and processing infrastructure. Applications can then be run over the top. The previous practice was that each defence project would purchase and run its own network and hardware.

Matt pointed out that defence has about 90,000 desktop PCs, but also 10,000 trucks. In the future each truck will also have a screen in it and be potentially part of the system.

In terms of integration, Matt gave the example of a desk at the new Australian Defence Force "Headquarters Joint Operations Command (HQJOC)", with a desk for one person having five monitors and four telephones on it. He mentioned that most staff have at least two computers on their desk for security reasons. In the logistics area paper is mostly used and the most advanced application in common use is a spreadsheet.

A term Matt kept using was "composite applications". This seemed to be similar to a "mashup". He argued that in many cases small, quick and simple integration would provide benefits to the user. He said he did not want to buy heavily coupled integrated applications, but services.

The JSF project is paying for a secret level backbone for their own use, but which can also be used across the organisation. Matt used the example of the stove-pipe systems limiting access for military purposes in the middle-east. He also mentioned silos stopping reuse.

Matt said he was looking at the possibility of using cloud based services like Google apps, initially for personnel on deployment to use to communicate with their family (not for military purposes). This could be a good way to introduce military personnel to new ways of working. Obviously cloud systems within the Defence network can be used for security.

1. Collins class submarine replacement project

   The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) project SEA 1000 is planning to replace six current Collins class submarines with twelve new vessels. These are expected to be the largest, most sophisticated and longest range non-nuclear submarines ever built. It is likely the project will favour an evolved version of the Collins class submarine, rather than a complete new design. This allows for OSS to be trialed in the existing vessels before installation in the new builds.

2. EA-18G Growler

   The Australian Government has ordered 12 Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet aircraft to be wired for conversion to EA-18G Growler electronic warfare (EW) aircraft. A decision is required by 2012 as to what EW equipment to install. The USA may not permit the export of the EW equipment installed on the EA-18G, or may not release the technical information required for its modification.

The Collins class submarine replacement project and EA-18G Growler represent two projects will require considerable software customisation and continual modification. While some systems need to sail/fly the craft will require safety critical performance and so need to be specially written and tests, those for sensor systems can use more COTS software and OSS. The craft will provide relatively large amounts of space and electrical power allowing installation of multiprocessor systems and there will be a need for continual upgrades and also rapid customisation for emerging requirements.

The U.S. Navy ARCI Program and the Australian Collins Submarine Communication Replacement (SEA1439 Phase 5B2) could make use of low cost, off the shelf computer equipment and open source software.

Very little of defecne expenditure on ICT invovles high security military systems. Open Source Software may be easier to sell into other areas. One example is education. Defence has more than 100,000 personnel to be trained in everything from one hour saftey coruses up to a postgraduate level. Australian Defence are using the Moodle OSS LMS. The OSS concept can also be expanded into the area of open access content, such as the Green Technology Strategies course.

Dr Bruce Northcote will talk about the Centre for Defence Communications & Information Networking (DSIC) Tuesday 20th April 2010 at 6pm (RSVP). DSIC is a venture between the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia for defence systems integration research with government and industry, including: DSTO, DMO, BAE, Cisco, ASC, Tenix, Cranfield University and SA Government.