Net-Centric Operations Warfare (also referred to as NCOW, NCOW-RM, or Net-Centric Operations Warfare Reference Model ) describes how the United States Department of Defense will conduct business operations, warfare, and enterprise management in the future. It is based on the information technology (IT) concept of an assured, dynamic, and shared information environment that provides access to trusted information for all users, based on need, independent of time and place. NCOW is an information-enabled concept of operations that generates increased combat power by networking sensors, decision makers, and shooters. This enables shared awareness, increased speed of command, higher tempo of operations, greater lethality, increased survivability, and a degree of self-synchronization. In essence, network-centric warfare translates information superiority into combat power by effectively linking knowledgeable entities in the battlespace.
The Department of Defense is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government concerned directly with national security and the United States Armed Forces. The department is the largest employer in the world, with nearly 1.3 million active duty servicemen and women as of 2016. Adding to its employees are over 826,000 National Guardsmen and Reservists from the four services, and over 732,000 civilians bringing the total to over 2.8 million employees. Headquartered at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., the DoD's stated mission is to provide "the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation's security".
NCOW is the result of a long history of United States Department of Defense systems acquisition where each acquisition program independently developed redundant and incompatible systems. These weaknesses were identified in a number of Government Accountability Office audits and prompted the passage of the Clinger-Cohen Act, establishment of the Global Information Grid, and establishment of the DoD Architecture Framework as a part of the business transformation mission of the Department of Defense. The net-centric model is the overarching enterprise architecture for information technology systems within DoD.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is a legislative branch government agency that provides auditing, evaluation, and investigative services for the United States Congress. It is the supreme audit institution of the federal government of the United States.
The Global Information Grid (GIG) is an all-encompassing communications project of the United States Department of Defense.
Enterprise architecture (EA) is "a well-defined practice for conducting enterprise analysis, design, planning, and implementation, using a comprehensive approach at all times, for the successful development and execution of strategy. Enterprise architecture applies architecture principles and practices to guide organizations through the business, information, process, and technology changes necessary to execute their strategies. These practices utilize the various aspects of an enterprise to identify, motivate, and achieve these changes."
The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), known as the Defense Communications Agency (DCA) until 1991, is a United States Department of Defense (DoD) combat support agency composed of military, federal civilians, and contractors. DISA provides information technology (IT) and communications support to the President, Vice President, Secretary of Defense, the military services, the combatant commands, and any individual or system contributing to the defense of the United States.
Net-Centric Enterprise Services (NCES) is a Department of Defense program, managed by the Defense Information Systems Agency, to develop information technology infrastructure services for future systems used by the United States military.
The Combat Capabilities Development Command (CCDC) C5ISR Center, formally the Communications-Electronics RD&E Center, is the United States Army information technologies and integrated systems center. CCDC C5ISR Center is headquartered at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, with activities at Fort Belvoir in Virginia and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey.
The Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DoDAF) is an architecture framework for the United States Department of Defense (DoD) that provides visualization infrastructure for specific stakeholders concerns through viewpoints organized by various views. These views are artifacts for visualizing, understanding, and assimilating the broad scope and complexities of an architecture description through tabular, structural, behavioral, ontological, pictorial, temporal, graphical, probabilistic, or alternative conceptual means.
Net-centric Enterprised Solutions for Interoperability (NESI) is a joint effort between the United States Navy’s Program Executive Office for C4I & Space and the United States Air Force’s Electronic Systems Center. It provides implementation guidance which facilitates the design, development, maintenance, evolution, and use of information systems for the Net-Centric Operations and Warfare (NCOW) environment. NESI has also been provided to other Department of Defense (DoD) services and agencies for potential adoption.
NetOps is defined as the operational framework consisting of three essential tasks, Situational Awareness (SA), and Command & Control (C2) that the Commander (CDR) of US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), in coordination with DoD and Global NetOps Community, employs to operate, manage and defend the Global Information Grid (GIG) to ensure information superiority for the United States.
A federal enterprise architecture framework (FEAF) is the U.S. reference enterprise architecture of a federal government. It provides a common approach for the integration of strategic, business and technology management as part of organization design and performance improvement.
The British Ministry of Defence Architecture Framework (MODAF) is an architecture framework which defines a standardised way of conducting enterprise architecture, originally developed by the UK Ministry of Defence.
The Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC) is an international not-for-profit, chartered in the United States, whose goal is to facilitate the adoption of cross-domain interoperability standards. Formed in September 2004, the organization is composed of more than 50 members and advisors representing business, government organizations and academic institutions in 12 countries.
The Transformational Satellite Communications System (TSAT) program was a United States Department of Defense (DOD) program sponsored by the U.S. Air Force for a secure, high-capacity global communications network serving the Department of Defense, NASA and the United States Intelligence Community (IC). It was intended as an enabler of net-centric warfare that would facilitate defense and intelligence professionals making rapid decisions based on integrated, comprehensive information. In 2003, the estimated project costs for the period up to 2015 were estimated to US$ 12 billion. In October 2008, the DoD announced that it was postponing making a decision on choosing a contractor to build the system until 2010. In April 2009 Secretary of Defence Robert M. Gates asked that the project be canceled in its entirety.
David Stephen Alberts is a former American Director of Research for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (OASD) for Networks and Information Integration (NII).
LandWarNet (LWN) is the United States Army’s contribution to the Global Information Grid (GIG) that consists of all globally interconnected, end-to-end set of Army information capabilities, associated processes, and personnel for collecting, processing, storing, disseminating, and managing information on demand supporting warfighters, policy makers, and support personnel. It includes all Army and leveraged Department of Defense (DOD)/Joint communications and computing systems and services, software, data security services, and other associated services. LandWarNet exists to enable the warfighter through Mission Command, previously described as Battle Command. Other U.S. service equivalent efforts to LandWarNet include the Navy's "FORCEnet" and the Air Force's "C2 Constellation."
Core architecture data model (CADM) in enterprise architecture is a logical data model of information used to describe and build architectures.
Operational View (OV) is one of the basic views defined in the enterprise architecture (EA) of the Department of Defense Architecture Framework V1.5 (DoDAF) and is related with concept of operations. Under DODAF 2, which became operational in 2009, the collections of views are now termed 'viewpoints' and no longer views.
Technical Architecture Framework for Information Management (TAFIM) was a 1990s reference model for enterprise architecture by and for the United States Department of Defense (DoD).
NIST Enterprise Architecture Model is a late-1980s reference model for enterprise architecture. It defines an enterprise architecture by the interrelationship between an enterprise's business, information, and technology environments.
Live, Virtual, & Constructive (LVC) Simulation is a broadly used taxonomy for classifying Models and Simulation (M&S). However, categorizing a simulation as a live, virtual, or constructive environment is problematic since there is no clear division between these categories. The degree of human participation in a simulation is infinitely variable, as is the degree of equipment realism. The categorization of simulations also lacks a category for simulated people working real equipment.
Project Scorpion is a multinational military modernization program which uses military-run experimentation for acquisition of new armaments. Project Scorpion also tests new military behaviors such as effects-based operations, network-centric warfare, and irregular warfare and civilian-military concepts.