950 ELSG office makes its mark during Empire Challenge demo event Published Sept. 24, 2007 By Monica D. Morales ESC Public Affairs Hanscom AFB, Mass. -- DCGS Integration Backbone team proves DIB can handle intel-sharing capabilities By providing interoperability among 19 systems, four security domains, four networks, six countries and three continents, the Electronic Systems Center recently demonstrated a level of connectivity some previously thought impossible. When the 950th Electronic Systems Group's DIB Management Office recently took part in Empire Challenge 2007, it proved that the critical integration backbone for the Distributed Common Ground System could provide an unprecedented level of multi-site intelligence information awareness. The DCGS backbone, referred to as the DIB, was originally developed as part of the Air Force DCGS 10.2 program and is now a critical component of every Service's DCGS system. The DIB enables the net-centric vision of sharing ISR data between sites and carries with it the capacity to change how data workflow is processed. "I am very proud of the team and what it accomplished," said Maj. Guy Mathewson, DIB program manager at the 950 ELSG's DIB Management Office. "There were skeptics that may have thought that we had bitten off more than we could chew, but by sharing intelligence data across systems, across services and the intel community we proved that it can be done." Empire Challenge is a demonstration event designed to test multi-intelligence Distributed Common Ground System joint and coalition interoperability at China Lake Naval Air Warfare Center, China Lake, Calif. Other exercise players included Navy, Army, Marine Corps, Australian, British and Canadian participants. The Air Force's DCGS is a global system that uses data-gathering sensors to collect information and provide analysis and distribution of intelligence data from anywhere on the planet. The main component of the DIB, the Metadata Catalog, allows users, for example, to access information via a search engine like those on the Web. Using a key word, target, interest type or geographic area, users can search through libraries of information. It's these capabilities that the DIB team, made up of about 12 personnel, aimed to bring to the Mojave Desert to meet the event's primary objective of employing DIB version 1.2, beta 1 across multiple domains. And along with that came making DIB interoperability Empire Challenge's top priority. "When we moved up in priorities and became number one, we thought 'What a great opportunity to be in the spotlight,'" said Tom Cashin, DCGS-Navy, DMO technical operations project lead candidate. In this case, being cast to the top also meant successfully taking part in the process involved with real-time data collecting and data sharing within the parameters of the event. Employing data collection assets like The Paul Revere Boeing 707 Test Aircraft, also based at Hanscom, was among the first steps in acquiring the data needed for DIB to eventually process. "The Paul Revere flew several missions, and passed data down to the DCGS test bed, which has a DIB. Then that data could be shared across the systems and all the units across the world that had DIB in place," Major Mathewson said. The eventual result and the DIB team's top accomplishment was providing interoperability among 19 systems, four security domains, four networks, six countries and three continents. For the warfighter, this means a wider range of intelligence data accessibility and the ability to make more informed decisions based on a broader situational picture. "DIB really allows for the means to access data that a particular site wants to make available to the intel community," Mr. Cashin said. "That may not have happened before because each system had its own unique method of implementation." The end result proved its worth when, for example, Army operators were able to receive Ground Moving Target Indicator data captured by the Paul Revere and passed down into an Air Force system. But implementing this across such a wide-ranging, multi-faceted architecture didn't come without challenges. Overcoming the hurdle of complications with network connectivity proved to be the most time-consuming obstacle of the event. Between ensuring that firewall and router settings were correct and that the DIB itself was configured properly, more set-up time than initially anticipated was required, Major Mathewson said. "This is the largest federation to date of the DIB and ISR data, so we've never before tried to connect this many sites, security enclaves and systems," the major said. One of the most significant challenges actually had little to do with the technology itself and more with geography. With participants spanning the globe from Royal Australian Air Force Base Edinburgh to Ramstein AB, Germany, the concept of holding a meeting became far more complex. "Those of us at China Lake might be ready to have a meeting at 10 a.m., and then you started to realize that others were either ending or starting their days," Mr. Cashin said. "It just makes for an interesting experience." The triumphs and trials at Empire Challenge also played a significant role in determining the road ahead for the DIB. Software reports were created to reflect the DIB obstacles that either could or could not be overcome during the demonstration event. And it's providing these types of details, said the major, that will lay the foundation for building a better tool. "Since this involved software that was released early, we anticipated some issues because we'd never tried to do this much with it to date," he said. "But by being able to take this information back to the contractor to make fixes for the final version, it only stands to result in a better product." The final release of DIB, version 1.2, is scheduled to be released this December.