The Army released a notice this week for market research regarding a cyber training environment.

The Army's Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation wants market research that will help inform an acquisition strategy for a multi-year National Cyber Range Complex (NCRC) Event Planning and Operations Support contract.

This will support the Test Resource Management Center mission of providing realistic cybersecurity environments to support test and evaluation of major Department of Defense acquisition programs while also enabling realistic training and certification events for the Cyber Command's cyber mission force.

The Notice was sure to clarify from the outset that this effort is separate from the development of a persistent cyber training environment, which is being spearheaded by the Army for the entire DoD. The PCTE will provide scenarios event management and access for both individual and collective training as well as mission capabilities for the cyber mission.

The current NCR is operated by Lockheed Martin, the Army’s notice said, and includes four elements:

  • A secure facility
  • A unique security architecture
  • Integrated tools for cyber testing
  • A multi-disciplinary staff

"[T]he NCR provides an efficient and affordable cybersecurity testing and training infrastructure that can operate at levels up to Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI)," the notice said. "Using state-of-the-art network isolation capabilities, the NCR can simultaneously execute combinations of up to eight independent T&E and CMF training events at different classification levels."

The Army notes that due to growing demand for cybersecurity, T&E and CMF training certification, the Test Resource Management Center wants to increase cyber range capacity with an interconnected complex of NCR-like facilities located within government owned facilities.

"The NCRC will empower programs to conduct research experiments, development and operational tests, and operational training exercises in environments that emulate their specific computing, networking, and information systems infrastructures," the notice said.

The Army will hold an industry day June 21 to provide potential partners information about requirements.

About Mark Pomerleau

Mark Pomerleau is a reporter for C4ISRNET, covering information warfare and cyberspace.

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