US Navy makes greater use of the cloud to speed up delivery of software tools to ships

The network team on board US Navy ships wants to get software to sailors faster. To get there, he turns to the cloud.

As part of the service’s afloat network, called Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services, the Navy wants to increase seafarers’ access to software tools. To test the software and train sailors on the CANES infrastructure, the service turns to digital twin platforms that mimic the network infrastructure on board a ship.

C4ISRNET recently discussed how the Navy’s CANES program uses the cloud for software development with Captain Catherine Boehme, Program Manager for Tactical Networks in the Executive Office of the Information Warfare Systems Command Program of the C4I Navy and Space Systems.

Cloud for software development

The Boehme team is shifting their software development efforts to the cloud as much as possible, reducing reliance on physical lab environments and enabling increased collaboration between dispersed teams.

“This increases our flexibility as we are able to set up development and test environments in a more agile way,” said Boehme.

The service uses the cloud to test the integration of software applications before installing them on a ship and uses digital twins that represent aircraft carriers Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, she said. These computerized replicates allow for continuous development and integration, installation verification, troubleshooting assistance, configuration control, and virtual training opportunities.

NAVWAR is also using the cloud to test the applications that make up the Navy’s Information Warfare Platform, a set of digital tools that will allow the service to install software on ships more quickly.

“The objective is to improve the performances, the maturity of the baseline, to reduce anomalies or deficiencies on the baseline and therefore a troubleshooting on the construction and therefore also to reduce the overall cost of the installation. “said Boehme.

As a perspective, the budget for fiscal year 2021 of CANES, all appropriations combined, is $ 505 million.

DevSecOps pipeline

The Boehme team recently completed the initial operational capability of its new DevSecOps software pipeline that will provide applications to combatants on board ships. Developers will use cloud-hosted environments to build, test and deploy containerized software on ships without having to board a ship.

Creative environments represent the CANES network afloat. So by the time the software is released, the developers will have fixed as many bugs or potential issues as possible.

“From the start of development, through integration and testing, through the production afloat environment, the intention is to have a common baseline for all these phases,” said Boehme.

“Then once lit [the] afloat, our intention then is to continuously monitor the performance of the system and provide this feedback until the start of the cycle, under development and to be able to quickly remedy any … deficiency, any improvement required, to any new cyber vulnerability in a more fast and nimble fashion, ”said Boehme.

The USS Abraham Lincoln will be the first ship to benefit from it.

CANES training environment

The CANES program office is moving its system administrator training, known as the CANES virtual training environment, to Amazon Web Services’ GovCloud, allowing NAVWAR to offer training for multiple CANES configurations while increasing access for them. sailors and students.

The Navy has held previous trainings at two schools where the service had to pay for the upkeep and maintenance of equipment the sailors trained on. Since the new training is cloud-based, the service increases availability to eight locations.

“For each TVE [training virtual environment] of instantiation, this sailor has his own network instantiation to learn how to operate, to troubleshoot, they are able to inject anomalies, and this sailor can then troubleshoot and has his own sandbox to exploit during… the course ”, Boehme said.

The year to come

For the rest of the year, Boehme wants to increase the digital representation of CANES networks in the cloud in order to strengthen software development capabilities.

This would allow teams to create more applications, which could include command and control, combat or intelligence management, surveillance and reconnaissance programs.

“We are looking to increase the number of applications developed in a cloud environment and take advantage of containers and microservices,” said Boehme.