DoD Instruction (DoDI) 8410.02 defines NetOps as the DoD-wide operational, organizational, and technical capabilities for operating and defending the Global Information Grid. NetOps includes, but is not limited to, enterprise management, net assurance, and content management. NetOps provides Combatant Commanders (COCOMs) with GIG Situational Awareness to make informed Command and Control decisions. GIG SA is gained through the operational and technical integration of enterprise management and defense actions and activities across all levels of command (strategic, operational and expeditionary forces).[2]
The GIG includes any DoD system, equipment, software, or service that transmits, stores, or processes DoD information, and any other associated services necessary to achieve information superiority.
The synergy achieved by each integrated relationship between any two of the essential tasks (GEM, GNA, and GCM) produces the following NetOps desired effects in support of the overall goal of NetOps which is to provide the right information to the edge:
The element of NetOps known as Situational Awareness (SA), is the primary ability to improve the quality and timeliness of collaborative decision-making. To be effective, much of the SA must be shared in near-real-time by the decision-makers who have the ability to take this information, conduct critical analysis and act on those decisions with regards to employment, protection and defense of the GIG.
This shared Situational Awareness is derived from common reporting requirements using functionally standardized management tools and common data information exchange formats across the Defense Department. These capabilities collect (or receive), and fuse (enterprise management, network defense and configuration management) data in a real time or near real-time fashion to produce defined views of the mission critical GIG information of concern to a commander or NetOps center.
The DoD NetOps Community strives to obtain common visibility of network resources so that these can be managed, anticipate and mitigate problems, ensuring uninterrupted availability and protection of the GIG and provide for graceful degradation, self-healing, failover, diversity, and elimination of critical failure points. Through effective visibility, the NetOps community endeavors to attain the three goals of NetOps: Assured System and Network Availability, Assured Information Protection and Assured Information Delivery.[3]
Joint Task Force Global Network Operations (JTF-GNO)
JTF-GNO directs the operation and defense of the GIG to assure timely and secure Net-Centric capabilities across strategic, operational, and expeditionary boundaries in support of full spectrum warfighting, intelligence, and business missions for the Defense Department. [4]
Background
In 1998, the Department of Defense recognized a growing cyber threat and in response created the Joint Task Force — Computer Network Defense (JTF-CND), which achieved Initial Operational Capability (IOC) on 30 December 1998 and Full Operational Capability (FOC) by June 1999.
In the fall of 2000, in accordance with DoD doctrine, JTF-CND became the Joint Task Force — Computer Network Operations (JTF-CNO). In October 2002, the new Unified Command Plan (UCP), Change 2, re-aligned JTF-CNO under the United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM).
The JTF-CNO began its largest and most comprehensive transformation in April 2004 when the Commander of US Strategic Command approved the Joint Concept of Operations for GIG Network Operations. This “NetOps CONOPS” provided the common framework and command and control structure to conduct the USSTRATCOM Unified Command Plan (UCP) - assigned mission of Global Network Operations (NETOPS), combining the disciplines of Enterprise Systems (EM) and Network Management (NM), Computer Network Defense (CND), and Information Dissemination Management (IDM).
The Secretary of Defense signed a delegation of authority letter on 18 June 2004, designating the Director, DISA as the new Commander of the Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations. With this designation, the new command assumed the responsibility for directing the operation and defense of the GIG.
This transformation enhanced the JTF GNO's mission and objectives in achieving the Joint Vision 2020 Objective Force and the evolving concept of Net-Centricity.
As new concepts such as Network-centric warfare and Joint Vision 2010[5] arrived in the mid 1990s, it became clear that the center of gravity for U.S. military warfighting capability was shifting towards the network. A corresponding capability was required to move beyond managing the network as a back-office system into a domain of warfighting.[6]
NetOps was originally developed under the leadership of then United States Pacific Command J6 Brigadier General James Bryan during the stand-up of the USCINCPAC Theater C4I Coordination Center (TCCC) at Camp H. M. Smith, Hawaii in 1999.[7] The TCCC initiative was constructed of two distinct components - the technology that formed the vision of the GIG and the NetOps initiative; and the partnerships that made it a reality.
Through its working relationships with DISA, the Service Components, Sub-Unified Commands, JTFs, other CINC TCCC's, and the Joint Staff, USCINCPAC TCCC made the initial strides towards achieving Information Superiority and true enterprise-level processes. The USCINCPAC TCCC was a pilot program for the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence (ASD/C3I) NetOps concept. The NetOps concept began with the development of the architectural framework for NetOps, and a USCINCPAC developed Concept of Operations (CONOPS) outlining the key players and their roles and responsibilities necessary to develop the NetOps construct in the Pacific Theater. [8]
The original NetOps construct consisted of Network Management (NM), Information Assurance (IA), and Information Dissemination Management (IDM). Today the construct has evolved into GIG Enterprise Management (GEM), GIG Net Assurance(GNA), and GIG Content Management which roughly equates to the intent of the original NetOps concept.[2]
NetOps Vision
“We must change the paradigm in which we talk and think about the network; we must ‘fight’ rather than ‘manage’ the network and operators must see themselves as engaged at all times, ensuring the health and operation of this critical weapons system.” Donald Rumsfeld, United States Secretary of Defense (2001 - 2006)
"The US government and the US military must become still more joint, more agile, more decentralized, more networked, and better arranged to share information and coordinate actions." [9]Donald Rumsfeld, United States Secretary of Defense (2001 - 2006)
“This version of the NetOps CONOPS documents the lessons learned by Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations and the NetOps community through operations, exercises, and other events. We will continue to work with the NetOps Community as we translate the concepts set forth in this document into doctrine, policy and joint tactics, techniques, and procedures that strengthen the operations and defense of the Global Information Grid in support of warfighter business and intelligence operations.” General James E. Cartwright, Commander, United States Strategic Command(2004- August 2007)[1]
“The Strategic Vision for the JTF GNO is to lead an adaptive force that assures the availability, delivery, and protection of the Global Information Grid. The NetOps framework, effects, and organizational relationships described herein formulate a foundation for the operational future of the GIG, but these will not happen automatically, nor will they occur without significant effort from the entire NetOps Community. Attaining the vision will require cooperation, innovation, and execution from all mission partners and everyone who touches the GIG.” (From "Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations Strategic Plan, An Adaptive Force Ensuring Information Delivery", February 2006. The adaptive force assures availability, delivery and protection of infrastructure, systems, and information.) LtGen Charles E. Croom, Commander, JTF GNO.[10]
There is also a new paradigm shift occurring in NetOps from 1.0 to 2.0, or DevOps. NetOps Transformation is part of a new wave of automation assistance for network operators, and there are a few methodologies out there to help others. One prominent methodology is aptly named DIRE NetOps. It focuses on Documentation, Isolation, Repair, and Escalation to guide the user through the transformation process, ensuring high value tasks are supported with automation.
Mission
The Unified Command Plan (UCP) assigns the Cyber Mission to Commander, US Strategic Command. NetOps falls under the Cyber-Umbrella as a construct to "operate and defend the GIG."
The NetOps mission is to operate and defend the GIG. Unlike many missions with a defined completion date, NetOps has been established as a standing Joint Force mission necessitating dedicated leadership and resources to execute.
NetOps provides assured NetCentric services to the DoD in support of full spectrum of warfighting operations, intelligence, and business missions throughout the GIG enterprises, seamlessly, end-to-end. An objective of NetCentric services is to quickly get information to decision makers, with adequate context, to make better decisions affecting the mission and to project their decisions forward to their forces for action.
If the decision maker is not getting the needed net-centric services, the GIG NetOps community must collaboratively determine who must take action and how information flow can be optimized. This requires NetOps personnel to have a shared SA as well as the technologies, procedures, and collaborative organizational structures to rapidly assess and respond to system and network degradations, outages, or changes in operational priorities. All functions required to most effectively support GIG operations will be holistically managed. [1]
The effectiveness of NetOps will be measured in terms of availability and reliability of net-centric services, across all domains, in adherence to agreed-upon service levels and policies. The method for service assurance in a NetCentric collaborative environment is to establish operational thresholds, compliance monitoring, and a clear understanding of the capabilities between enterprise service/resource providers and consumers through Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
Proper instrumentation of the GIG will enable monitoring of adherence to these SLAs, as well as enable timely decision-making, service prioritization, resource allocation, root cause, and mission impact assessment. Subsequent TTPs and SLAs will be formalized with appropriate implementation policies to enforce compliance.[1]
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.
The United States Space Command is a unified combatant command of the United States Department of Defense, responsible for military operations in outer space, specifically all operations 100 kilometers and greater above mean sea level. U.S. Space Command is responsible for the operational employment of space forces that are provided by the uniformed services of the Department of Defense.
The United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) is one of the eleven unified combatant commands in the United States Department of Defense. Headquartered at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, USSTRATCOM is responsible for strategic nuclear deterrence, global strike, and operating the Defense Department's Global Information Grid. It also provides a host of capabilities to support the other combatant commands, including integrated missile defense; and global command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR). This command exists to give "national leadership a unified resource for greater understanding of specific threats around the world and the means to respond to those threats rapidly".
The United States Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) was a Unified Combatant Command of the United States Department of Defense. USJFCOM was a functional command that provided specific services to the military. The last commander was Army Gen. Ray Odierno and the Command Senior Enlisted was Marine Sergeant Major Bryan B. Battaglia. As directed by the President to identify opportunities to cut costs and rebalance priorities, Defense Secretary Robert Gates recommended that USJFCOM be disestablished and its essential functions reassigned to other unified combatant commands. Formal disestablishment occurred on 4 August 2011.
Network-centric warfare, also called network-centric operations or net-centric warfare, is a military doctrine or theory of war that aims to translate an information advantage, enabled partly by information technology, into a competitive advantage through the computer networking of dispersed forces. It was pioneered by the United States Department of Defense in the 1990s.
The Global Information Grid (GIG) is a network of information transmission and processing maintained by the United States Department of Defense. More descriptively, it is a worldwide network of information transmission, of associated processes, and of personnel serving to collect, process, safeguard, transmit, and manage this information. It is an all-encompassing communications project of the United States Department of Defense. The GIG makes this immediately available to military personnel, to those responsible for military politics, and for support personnel. It includes all infrastructure, bought or loaned, of communications, electronics, informatics, and security. It is the most visible manifestation of network-centric warfare. It is the combination of technology and human activity that enables warfighters to access information on demand.
The Defense Information System Network (DISN) has been the United States Department of Defense's enterprise telecommunications network for providing data, video, and voice services for 40 years.
Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations (JTF-GNO) was a subordinate command of United States Strategic Command whose mission was to: direct the operation and defense of the Global Information Grid (GIG) across strategic, operational, and tactical boundaries in support of the US Department of Defense's full spectrum of war fighting, intelligence, and business operations.
In the U.S., critical infrastructure protection (CIP) is a concept that relates to the preparedness and response to serious incidents that involve the critical infrastructure of a region or the nation. The American Presidential directive PDD-63 of May 1998 set up a national program of "Critical Infrastructure Protection". In 2014 the NIST Cybersecurity Framework was published after further presidential directives.
The Global Information Grid Bandwidth Expansion (GIG-BE) Program was a major United States Department of Defense (DOD) net-centric transformational initiative executed by DISA. Part of the Global Information Grid project, GIG-BE created a ubiquitous "bandwidth-available" environment to improve national security intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, information assurance, as well as command and control. Through GIG-BE, DISA leveraged DOD's existing end-to-end information transport capabilities, significantly expanding capacity and reliability to select Joint Staff-approved locations worldwide. GIG-BE achieved Full Operational Capability (FOC) on December 20, 2005.
The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks & Information Integration (ASD(NII)) was an appointed position that provided management and oversight of all DoD information technology, including national security systems. The ASD(NII) also served as the chief information officer (CIO) of the United States Department of Defense (DoD), a position distinct from the ASD and governed by the Clinger-Cohen Act.
Joint Task Force-Bravo is a forward-based expeditionary joint task force operating as U.S. Southern Command's (USSOUTHCOM) lead forward element in the Central America (CENTAM) region to promote stability and security and counter transnational and transregional threat networks (C-T3N). JTF-Bravo operates out of Soto Cano Air Base, Honduras, located 10 miles south of the city of Comayagua and 50 miles north of the capital city of Tegucigalpa.
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."
Capability management is a high-level management function, with particular application in the context of defense.
A concept of operations is a document describing the characteristics of a proposed system from the viewpoint of an individual who will use that system. Examples include business requirements specification or stakeholder requirements specification (StRS). CONOPS is used to communicate the quantitative and qualitative system characteristics to all stakeholders. CONOPS are widely used in the military, governmental services and other fields.
David John "Jack" Dorsett is a corporate vice president for cyber and C4 at Northrop Grumman, and a retired vice admiral of the U.S. Navy. He was the first Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Dominance and 63rd Director of Naval Intelligence. He served as the Director of Intelligence, Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2005 to 2008 prior to assuming his position on the Chief of Naval Operations staff.
Elizabeth Ann Hight is a retired United States Navy rear admiral who served as the vice director of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). She assumed this post in December 2007. In 2008, she was nominated for appointment to the grade of vice admiral and assignment as director, Defense Information Systems Agency; commander, Joint Task Force – Global Network Operations; and deputy commander, U.S. Strategic Command Global Network Operations and Defense, Arlington, Virginia. Her nomination was rejected by the Senate due to a perceived conflict of interest with her husband, retired Air Force Brigadier General Gary Salisbury, who is vice president of business development and sales for Northrop Grumman Corp.'s mission systems sector, defense mission systems division. She retired from the Navy in 2010.
United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) is one of the eleven unified combatant commands of the United States Department of Defense (DoD). It unifies the direction of cyberspace operations, strengthens DoD cyberspace capabilities, and integrates and bolsters DoD's cyber expertise which focus on securing cyberspace.
The U.S. Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command is a functional formation of the United States Marine Corps to protect critical infrastructure from cyberattack. Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command is the Marine Corps component to U.S. Cyber Command. It comprises a command element, the Marine Corps Cyber Operations Group, and the Marine Corps Cyber Warfare Group, a total of approximately 800 personnel. MARFORCYBER was established on January 21, 2010 under the command of LtGen George J. Flynn,. As of 7 July 2021, MajGen Ryan P. Heritage is in command.
Host Based Security System (HBSS) is the official name given to the United States Department of Defense (DOD) commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) suite of software applications used within the DOD to monitor, detect, and defend the DOD computer networks and systems. The Enterprise-wide Information Assurance and computer Network Defense Solutions Steering Group (ESSG) sponsored the acquisition of the HBSS System for use within the DOD Enterprise Network. HBSS is deployed on both the Non-Classified Internet Protocol Routed Network (NIPRNet) and Secret Internet Protocol Routed Network (SIPRNet) networks, with priority given to installing it on the NIPRNet. HBSS is based on McAfee, Inc's ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO) and other McAfee point product security applications such as Host Intrusion Prevention System (HIPS).
References
1 2 3 4 5 Joint Concept of Operations (CONOPS) for Global Information Grid (GIG) NetOps Version 3, dated August 4, 2006
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
