Maj Gen Craig Olson is the Program Executive Officer for C3I and Networks, Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts, with responsibility for more than 2,200 personnel and a $10.9 billion portfolio of Air Force, joint and coalition cyberspace, networks, cryptologic and data link systems. Prior to his appointment in mid-2012, he was program executive officer for Business and Enterprise Systems, Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base, Alabama.

He spoke to C4ISR & Networks Editor Barry Rosenberg about how networks connect the war fighting domains, the relationship between his networks acquisition office and the 24th Air Force, and the service's seven cyber weapon systems.

With support of the war fighter a given, what's at the top of your to-do list?

Maj Gen Craig Olson: When I got here three years ago the PEO called C3I and Networks did not have a mission statement. We looked at the portfolio of programs and asked what is the common thread here, and found the common thread was war fighting domains. So if you think of space, air, sea, land and cyber as places where we try to create effects as war fighters, we saw the common thread connecting those domains. I like to call that a lightning bolt. You think of a lightning bolt as a common link between a couple of assets. And those lightning bolts go in between and within those war fighting domains. A lot of the programs in this portfolio are about that.

Maj Gen Craig Olson is the Air Force Program Executive Officer for C3I and Networks.

Photo Credit: DoD

In some cases we have aircraft like BACN, a Battlefield Air Control Node. [Editor's note: BACN uses Global Hawk unmanned aircraft to serve as communications nodes, allowing transmissions in rugged terrain where mountains disrupt line-of-sight signals.]

We've written about BACN.

OLSON: Yes, most people do love that thing, but it is an oddity to have an aircraft in the portfolio. We manage a lot of boxes and data links that connect assets in each of those war fighting domains, so that is the common thread. So each day we look at how are we doing in each of those domains. For example, in the aerial and space networks domain we have the JALN, Joint Aerial Layer Network, which is really a concept of a future state where we build links in message sets and radios that are more common, more interoperable, more affordable, more secure and more agile.

The term "combat cloud" is associated with JALN. If we could place a combat cloud in the aerial and space network, can I just plug my aircraft into that cloud and find my targeting solution, for example? We cannot really do that today because we have things like fifth- to fourth-generation fighter connectivity issues.

How do we get those old fighters and new fighters talking to each other? They were not really built to do that. And so as we look ahead to the future, we want to create a combat cloud environment like the iPhone. I can just tap into that with my aircraft and get the data I need.

So that is one domain. Another domain that I want to emphasize is the terrestrial ground domain, the Air Force Network, AFNet, and getting that to the future state of the Joint Information Environment (JIE). That is the high priority. [Developing] a commoditized infrastructure, commoditized IT, a common computing environment for reducing the number of duplicative apps and data centers are a high priority in our portfolio, as well.

The Air Force, Army, Navy and the Defense Information Systems Agency are working toward a common network under JIE. What is your view of progress so far?

OLSON: It is happening, but am I satisfied with the speed at which it is happening? I would say no. When you look at how fast we have to consolidate data centers, reduce our application footprint and reduce our common services to fit within the budget we have, it has got to be fast. So we have a few years to do all of this. We are not necessarily very good at doing things in just a few years.

None of us, I think, are satisfied with where we are at in individual services. We meet formally on a quarterly basis to talk about what each service is doing to mature the current state network to a future state network, the JIE, and how we rationalize and reduce our application footprint to fit in those reduced data centers.

If you are doing it one way in the Army and I am doing it a different way in the Air Force, why? Why am I doing it different? We are at the stage now I would say we understand where each other started, because we did not start together. And we are now starting to exploit real commonality opportunities, for example, the joint regional security stacks.

That was about a year and a half ago. It was really encouraging to see senior Air Force and Army leadership come together and say, let's build out this joint regional security stack together as a joint program for the Army and the Air Force.

The first version of that is 1.5, which is a fully funded program on contract. So to replace current AFNet gateways with the JRSS 1.5 is an ongoing program. So it is real, but that is just one component of many components inside of the Joint Information Environment.

PEO C3I and Networks has responsibility for one aspect of AFNet and the 24th Air Force, your service's cyber command in San Antonio, has responsibility for other aspects like defending the network. Please explain the relationship.

OLSON: They are huge partners for us. The cyber-encrypto division of this PEO lives in San Antonio, basically in the same space as the 24th Air Force. They are establishing the requirement and we sit side-by-side with them. It is kind of a unique operator-acquisition partnership, which I have probably only seen once in my 20 years of acquisitions where you are really, no kidding, sitting with the operator.

You look at the threat together, you look at the solution together, you do your experimenting together, and you figure out how to spend the money together. And, actually, you watch them fly their mission. You can just sit there because they do it at a keyboard. You do not have to jump in the back of a F-15 to see them fly a mission. It is a very unique opportunity that was set up [several] years ago. We are just carrying that concept forward now. I am really excited about the partnership going on in Texas.

The Air Force has seven cyber weapon systems. [Editor's note: The seven are called Air Force Cyberspace Defense, Cyberspace Defense Analysis, Cyberspace Vulnerability Assessment/Hunter, Air Force Intranet Control, Air Force Cyber Security and Control System, Cyberspace C2 Mission System, and Network Attack System.]

They were established almost two years ago. The chief of staff establishes a weapon system and it is treated as a weapon system. You have seven of these things that are fielded with the 24th Air Force to help operate the network, surveil the network, defend the network, and there is one offensive weapon, too.

I know you can't tell me about the offensive weapon, so tell me about another one of them.

OLSON: For example, how do I command and control my cyber weapon system? That in itself is a system — the command and control piece. If I am conducting the cyber mission today and am managing my cyber assets, I have a weapon system to help me do that. It is electronic in ones and zeros, but it is a weapon system.

It has to have configuration control. It has to have a baseline set of performance. It has to be modernized and sustained. And that is a part of why we made them weapon systems. Our job as a PEO is to do life cycle management for those seven weapon systems.

I am curious about the difference between your networks and Army networks and Navy networks. Is there something specific to Air Force networks that maybe require some customization when it comes to establishment of a standardized global network?

OLSON: The answer is yes. The Army and the Navy need certain things that are different, and the Air Force needs certain things that are different. JRSS was an example of that. I think the Army liked what they saw in Air Force gateways [and said,] "let's let the Air Force lead that effort."

And the Army, for example, has taken [a different direction than the Air Force with] their large enterprise resource planning applications for logistics and personnel and finances.

We are paying attention to the way they have taken their family of enterprise resource programs and built out an environment, a cloud-like environment, although they do not really call it a cloud, but it is an environment that is suited for those types of apps. So you get the savings of doing one for many apps, many ERP-type apps.

That is different than the approach we had been taking. So we are watching it very closely. "Engineered solutions" is the term that they use, and they are further down the path than we are. So we are watching that very closely because we may very well leverage that.

How is acquiring IT systems different than acquiring hardware systems such as aircraft?

OLSON: I have done both [types of acquisition]. In some ways it is very different and in some ways it is very the same. In those areas where it is very different is where we struggle. From an acquisition point of view, I will characterize "different" as the need for updating anything in cyber in nanoseconds — or on a good day maybe seconds. That is a bit of an extreme, but you know what I mean.

Whereas getting a two-year OFP [operational flight program] update on an airplane is what I came from. So to go from a two-year cycle time to a couple of seconds cycle time, do we have an acquisition system that can even accommodate that? The book answer to that is not really. Even though DoD 5000 guidance says you can tailor any way you want, the culture does not really allow it. So the co-location in Texas was stood up with that very thinking in mind. We have got to create a culture that allows us to do a cycle time that is appropriate for cyber and IT.

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