Lockheed Martin Team to Beef Up US Military Network Security
The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded a $31 million contract to a team lead by Lockheed Martin to develop a network protocol to improve the confidentiality, integrity, and security of US military networks.
In developing this new protocol, Lockheed Martin’s team will develop router technologies that include strong authentication and self-configuration capabilities to improve security and bandwidth allocation and lower overall life cycle costs for network management.
Lockheed Martin’s team includes Microsoft, Juniper Networks, Anagran, Stanford University, and LGS Innovations, which has been quite active in securing military IT business on its own…
LGS, a subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent, recently received an $11.7 million delivery order to provide network installation, integration, and professional services for a communications infrastructure upgrade at Fort Benning in Georgia. The order has a total potential value of $30.7 million, if all options are exercised.
LGS is upgrading the network to accommodate operations and personnel that will be moving to Fort Benning as a result of Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) implementation. The LGS work includes the upgrading of 4 area distribution nodes, which serve as a main data communications hub, as well as wireless infrastructure to connect new buildings.
The delivery order award is under the Infrastructure Modernization (IMOD) contract and is in support of the Army’s Program Executive Office, Enterprise Information Systems (PEO EIS) Installation Information Infrastructure Modernization Program (I3MP) managed by the Project Manager, Network Service Center (PM NSC) at Fort Monmouth, NJ.
In addition, LGS announced in July 2009 that it had completed a $35 million European optical network connecting 15 US Army installations in Germany. The network will link forward-deployed soldiers to worldwide command and control (C2) and information systems.
The project was managed by the U.S Army’s Product Manager Defense Communications Systems Europe (PM DCS -E) located at Funari Barracks in Mannheim, Germany. PM DCS-E is a subordinate organization to PM NSC and PEO EIS. The Army’s 5th Signal command will have operations and maintenance responsibility for this new optical network.
