Friends in the Navy have been theorizing for years about a future where unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) might fly actual combat missions. One theoretical concept might be large flights of aircraft, perhaps with one manned to control 12 unmanned, and those 12 unmanned being giving broad engagement orders and sent into automated combat with performance characteristics that no manned aircraft could ever do because of the human element. The Navy has lots of real world experience with combat and UAVs and aviation and are well poised to think through these activities and are really innovating in this new domain.

Meanwhile many friends in the USAF have also been getting real world experience with UAVs, but for cultural/political reasons seem to be dragging their feet when it comes to UAV innovation. There seems to be a cultural fear that if machines can fly then the Air Force and its human leaders might be less important. The argument is never made so bluntly but that seems to be the gist of what they are saying (it is also not an argument I buy, by the way, there will always be a need for strong human leadership in the USAF, they should have no fear). The Air Force has even invented a new acronym. They hardly ever use the term UAV anymore.  They much prefer to say RPA. Why? Because RPA stands for “Remotely Piloted Vehicle” which underscores that a human is controlling the UAV, as if that is going to slow down the march of progress. The fact is that these UAVs have always had human issuing their orders but they are very capable robots themselves and each generation ads more and more automation.

Since the Air Force is dominated by pilots (as you would expect) and is most dominated by fighter pilots I don’t expect their cultural biases against UAVs to change anytime soon, especially against UAVs that are designed to outperform humans in combat missions.  I know there is also that sort of bias against these systems from USN aviation but perhaps other cultural issues at play made the Navy more open to experimenting with these capabilities.  After years of concept development and testing they have now demonstrated some awesome capabilities.  Our analyst Chris Scott will provide an update on these capabilities tomorrow. For now, check out the video below of an X-47B taxing on and then taking off from an Aircraft Carrier. Awesome. This is so cool it could have come right out of a science fiction movie.

It is also cool that the USN did this. Go Navy!

In February, AFCEA International put out the grave news that the annual DISA Mission Partner Conference for FY2013 would be cancelled. This was a huge blow to Defense Industry participants. This is the ONE event where I can annually renew my familiarity with “all things joint”. Not only is it a great get-together (past locations have included Disneyland, Disneyworld, The Grand Ole Opry, to name a few!), but also they hold intensive training sessions on DISA programs. Once a year, you can sign up for so many training sessions your head would explode!

I’m probably not the only one in this industry that sometimes has trouble keeping my C5ISR acronym-alphabet soup straight. One year, I immersed myself in NECC (Net Enabled Command and Control) training, which was supposed to replace GCSS. At the end of the week I was an expert! Ok bad example… a few weeks later DISA cancelled that program because of time and cost overruns. But you get the idea!

Now this week we learn the wonderful news that DISA will indeed present a “Forecast to Industry” (required by law, by the way) which will take place on Friday, August 9 from 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. at the DISA Headquarters Conference Center on Fort George G. Meade, Md. Although with only one day, I fear that many of the training opportunities will be abbreviated (pun intended), I am sure it’s still worth the cost of travel to this garden spot of America. See you there!

When talking with the less-technical people in your enterprise, which may include end users and many others on the leadership team, it always pays to have non technical expressions to describe new capabilities.

Here are some thoughts on Platfora that may be of use in discussions like that.

Here is how to describe Platfora to a non-technical person:

• Platfora gives users a better ability to interact with information. They can ask their own questions, follow their own theories, run their own “what-if” scenarios, and ask unbounded questions in iterative ways over their data.
• To a user, Platfora provides subsecond-interactive, responsive visualizations and analytical tools. Users can interact with data even before they know what they are looking for.
• To a user, Platfora is a fast, interactive analytical tool that lets them make sense over more data than they ever thought possible.

As a technologist you need to understand more about how that works. But most users will not care about the detail. They are going to be too excited getting their job done and finding new ways to contribute to organizational missions.

But here are a few bullets for the technologist:

• Platfora’s strength is in transforming Apache Hadoop from a batch engine into a subsecond-interactive, exploratory business intelligence and analytics platform designed for business analysts. This has never been done before. It required savvy engineering and resulted in a system that will work with your data holdings and existing Hadoop clusters.
• The user end of Platfora is built on HTML5. It is accessible anywhere. The browser-based experience is awesome and very well engineered. Collaboration and sharing tools are built in. Analysts use this front end to interact with the data and they get results lightning fast.
• The speed comes because of “in-memory lenses” powered by Fractal Cache technology. Platfora automatically transforms massive datasets into highly responsive lenses. The high-performance query engine makes access to big data fast and scales-out to terabytes of in-memory data. Lenses are refined and updated based on the needs of the end-user.
• Lenses are built by Platfora’s Adaptive Job Synthesis capability. This synthesizes specialized MapReduce jobs that automatically extract detail, perform calculations and support downstream analysis, building lenses efficiently and on demand. All datasets in Hadoop are cataloged and can be securely browsed by any Platfora user.

For more see http://platfora.com

Fixmo SharePlace Delivers Integrated Mobile Security and DLP for Microsoft SharePoint; Supports Mobile-Specific Access Control Policies

TORONTO & STERLING, Va.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Fixmo, a leading provider of mobile security and risk management solutions, today announced the availability of Fixmo SharePlace, the first defense-grade data leakage prevention (DLP) solution enabling secure and compliant access to Microsoft SharePoint from Apple iOS and Android devices.

We previously provided information on the DI2E Pluggest and Mashup event being coordinated by some forward thinking, mission-focused government thought leaders and friends at the Association for Enterprise Technology (AFEI).  The event will be held Monday 20 May at George Mason University in Fairfax Virginia. We liked the approach when we first heard of it (we earlier wrote about Software AG Government Solutions and their first place win at the AFCEA West Plugfest). Now we have seen even more about what is going on and can now report this will be even more exciting to attend.

Let me start by mentioning some of the incredibly hot technology firms that accepted the unique challenge presented to industry by agreeing to participate in this event. Attendees at the event will get a chance to interact directly with firms like: Cloudera, Cloud Front Group, SoftwareAG/Terracotta, MarkLogic, SaratogaData, IBM and JackBe (these are all firms that our consultancy has worked very closely with and Bob is on many of their advisory boards/boards).  Many other great firms are also participating directly or attending to track the activity. This will be a fantastic event from a technologist perspective.

I’m a technologist and wanted to list those hot tech firms first, but the real reason to come is to engage in something bigger than just the technology. Government thought leaders will be giving updates on the state of their challenges and during the day several teams will be participating in mashup challenges designed to demonstrate fast integrations that can address challenges. Participants will get to interact with and vote for those that address mission needs in the best ways.

Here is how the plugfest works:

During the day, Mashup Challenge Teams from DIA, NGA and TerraPixel are leveraging all of the DI2E Framework services posted in the Plugfest eXchange Enterprise Testbed to develop new capabilities in this very short time frame that address a specific intelligence scenario.  A contribution will be made to charity by the winning Mashup team.  The winner is determined by vote by the event participants.

I know for a fact that the Terracotta team (which I believe will include JackBe and others) will be showcasing some of their real-time capabilities associated with sensor/streaming data, geospatial data, predictive and pattern matching analytics to provide situational awareness, alerts and intelligence. Expect to see demos that will blow you away by highlighting real-time analytics on big data while leveraging low latency messaging techniques, with agile development and deployment in the DI2E frameworks and cloud environment.

Register now! More info and registration links are at: DI2E Plugfest

Here is more on the agenda:

The DI2E Plugfest and Mashup is a collaborative effort to continue the evolution of the DI2E framework.  The DI2E framework provides interoperable and reusable components that are flexible, agile and data-driven.  Plugfest began with the DI2E Worldwide conference and will be continued in various venues as a platform for demonstrating how industry is providing agile ISR capability to Warfighters and others. (Download DI2E Framework Brochure).

                          
DI2E Plugfest is a technology demonstration and a capability showcase based on conformance to the DI2E Framework. 

Attendees will see how Plugfest participants are providing their capabilities both at the vendor’s display tables as well as in the Plugfest Command Center.

Plugfest has two components:

• Awarding Gold Stars for achievement
• Interact through the Live Data Scan of QR codes

Plugfest is:

• interoperability and reuse under the DI2E Framework
• reusable data, services and components
• cloud-based, services-oriented solutions demonstration environment
• an opportunity to connect with customers and demonstrate conformance
• about networking, testing and connecting

It’s how Defense Intelligence does business in the future.

Why Participate in Plugfest? For more information…

The Mashup Challenge is a competition by teams who will create solutions that provide a distinct set of capabilities necessary for accomplishing the challenge scenario.  Teams are recruited from Government organizations and are provided an operational scenario before the event. Vendors are encouraged to provide their products into the electronic mall (PX) available to the teams.

The objective of the Mashup Challenge is to demonstrate the DI2E vision of a pluggable environment usable by multiple Programs of Record. Basic features of the Mashup Challenge are:

• Vendors will provide SOA web service components integrated into thePlugfest Exchange
• Challengers will be representative of DCGS PoR Community
• Teams will be given one week to leverage within the Plugfest eXchange (PX) to develop an application that meets an operationally relevant ISR scenario
• A panel of judges will award prizes for first, second, and third place

Plugfest Exchange (PX) is a cloud-based environment where capabilities can be hosted, and where all Plugfest capabilities will be listed in the PX.  The Plugfest Exchange has been developed by the DI2E EFT to provide support to the creation of the DI2E plugfest on-line environment.

PX is a virtual, integrated, services environment that where vendors can have their capabilities hosted by the PX.  Vendors not wanting to integrate their products/capabilities into PX can still have them in the Plugfest electronic mall by hosting themselves and tunneling into the PX environment. 

Agenda