Army solicits network ideas

Army officials want to develop an architecture to better defend the service's network of voice, video and data systems.

They issued a Dec. 21 solicitation under the Army's Information Technology Enterprise Solutions contracting program that asks industry officials to devise a strategy to consolidate the service's network expenditures and to ensure that LandWarNet provides necessary services to commanders and soldiers located around the world.

"This project is to develop the issues and constraints that frame a comprehensive answer and then develop courses of action based on the issues and constraints. A course of actions shall be recommended and a plan developed to execute a plan across the Army world wide," said the document, "Army-wide Area Network Synchronization Plan Requirement."

The document called a statement of work released by officials at the Army's Network Enterprise Technology Command/9th Army Signal Command asked industry officials to define three things:

An architecture to defend networks.

A strategy to connect networks and IT services.

A plan to synchronize expenditures and operations.

Industry officials must complete the work within six months of contract award. For more information, call Micheal Stephany, the initiative's program manager, at (520) 538-7562 or e-mail at micheal.stephany@netcom.army.mil.

The procurement marks Army IT officials' fourth widescale attempt in recent months to better operate and protect the service's networks.

In August, Lt. Gen. Steve Boutelle, the service's chief information officer/G-6 told Army IT personnel at a conference that the service's systems are increasingly under cyberattack.

In September, Army IT officials published a white paper, "Fight the Network," that provides a framework for the service's communications personnel as they change to support lighter, more mobile war-fighting units and a mindset for them to defend Army networks.

In November, Boutelle's office released a brochure, "Fight the Network: The Network as a Weapon System," that highlights main points in the white paper.