With major networking and communications programs typically requiring years of development and billions of dollars in costs, it's easy to forget that the ultimate goal is not to place a shiny new box on a pedestal that we can all admire and that only company field service representatives can touch, but rather to field that box and its capability to soldiers and Marines on the ground, and sailors at sea.

In 2015, two multibillion-dollar programs transitioned from the shiny box phase to the deployment phase — the Army's Warfighter Information Network-Tactical Increment 2 (the on-the-move aspect of WIN-T), and the Navy's Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services (CANES) program, which brings a common computing environment to the afloat fleet and shored-based installations.

In our Command Conversation interview this month, we interview RADM David Lewis, commander of the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) in San Diego, who discusses the unique challenges associated with Navy network modernizations that typically require sailors to wield an oxy acetylene cutting torch during infrequent stays in the dry dock.

"Because we need to cut and burn to install a piece of C4I equipment we're tying ourselves to those [dry dock periods], and that restricts the rate and pace with which we can modernize our C4I systems," said Lewis. "So we're working very aggressively on a C4I modernization process that uses a wrench and DVDs or other media to do our upgrades and our modernization. I'd rather pull a drawer out of a rack and bolt a new drawer in place than have to cut off a foundation, pull cable and do all those heavy industrial things."

Also in this issue, we check in with SPAWAR's Atlantic operation, specifically to discuss how SPAWAR Systems Center Atlantic is incorporating cyber into its engineering services. "Cyber is a rapidly rising issue where everybody that fields any equipment in the Navy from a fire pump to the most sophisticated IT systems has to pay attention to cyber to keep ourselves secure," said SSC Atlantic Commanding Officer CAPT Scott Heller.

Speaking of Navy cybersecurity, many of the services’ senior leaders in cyber and information technology participated in the recent West 2016 and Department of the Navy’s CIO conferences in San Diego in February, and the C4ISR & Networks editorial staff was there covering the keynotes, panels and news from the trade show floor. To catch up on all the news from the conference, check out our news stories and photographs our Show Reporter.

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