Is the "smart" military thinking about "Smart Cloud" ?
Just back home gathering my thoughts after my second and last day at the Defence Security Equipment International event #DSEI at ExCel in London Docklands. Probably more visitors over the 4 days than the entire strength of the UK armed forces. Here you see me listening attentively to the new Chief of Air Staff - Air Chief Marshall Sir Andrew Pulford. Can you spot me in the audience (below) ?
My expectations for the second day were fairly low but in fact it turned out to be a thoroughly interesting and very educational day. My specific technology interest at the moment is "Cloud of Things" and "Smart Edge Connected Devices" which together I call the "Smart Cloud". My primary objective on the second day of the show was to explore peoples understanding of this concept and get some reaction.
I was able to follow excellent high level academic discussions about UAV survivability, the future of the RAF ISTAR force and MOD procurement policy by the top decision makers in these fields. I met with the software director behind the the Black Hornet micro UAV and saw how sensors were managed on board one of the Royal Navy frigates moored up at ExCel
A lot of the "sensor" activity that I saw was very clever and sophisticated but seemed to be primarily clustered around particular "weapon platforms" and were very Army, Navy or Air Force flavoured. My strong suspicion is that there is very limited information sharing between platforms, between services or between allies. I am relying on my "gut feeling" to arrive at this conclusion and obviously have no specific evidence to support this conclusion. Moving data from analogue to digital systems seems to be quite problematic. ISTAR is a very clever concept and looks to be getting its act together in terms on information sharing but I very much doubt that there is any significant tri-service data sharing between Frigates, Black Hornets or Sentinels (for instance) - feeding into one single consolidated command overview.
There seems to be a cultural "blind spot" in the forces with regards to the world of social media, apps and cloud based infrastructure. The opportunities presented by "Smart Cloud" don't seem to be understood or recognised. I think this is a missed opportunity - remember that the internet was first brought to the market by the US Department of Defense. "Smart Cloud" seems to have bypassed a British military which has been stationed in rural Afghanistan and Iraq for the last decade. (Without any rural broadband)
I was extremely impressed by all the highly motivated and very articulate members of the armed forces that I met at the event. The arms industry incorrectly focuses senior military attention on very expensive (and lucrative) platforms rather than the highly flexible and low cost "Smart Cloud" technologies that they should be looking to understand and procure. Cyber is being used as an excuse for not doing anything - why not design a "Cloud of Things" with the best built in security.
I am extremely proud of of the UK's Armed Forces and the young men and women serving our country in uniform. This feeling was fully vindicated during the two days that I spent at the event. In an ever changing world our military must be properly equipped to protect our counties vital interests in a very dangerous world and that must mean being "Smart" and highly "Innovative" Open Innovation between the services and small and agile micro SMEs could be a very productive exercise. I learnt a lot from my 2 days at DSEI
#cloud #DSEI #aviation #defence #uav
A lot of the "sensor" activity that I saw was very clever and sophisticated but seemed to be primarily clustered around particular "weapon platforms" and were very Army, Navy or Air Force flavoured. My strong suspicion is that there is very limited information sharing between platforms, between services or between allies. I am relying on my "gut feeling" to arrive at this conclusion and obviously have no specific evidence to support this conclusion. Moving data from analogue to digital systems seems to be quite problematic. ISTAR is a very clever concept and looks to be getting its act together in terms on information sharing but I very much doubt that there is any significant tri-service data sharing between Frigates, Black Hornets or Sentinels (for instance) - feeding into one single consolidated command overview.
There seems to be a cultural "blind spot" in the forces with regards to the world of social media, apps and cloud based infrastructure. The opportunities presented by "Smart Cloud" don't seem to be understood or recognised. I think this is a missed opportunity - remember that the internet was first brought to the market by the US Department of Defense. "Smart Cloud" seems to have bypassed a British military which has been stationed in rural Afghanistan and Iraq for the last decade. (Without any rural broadband)
I was extremely impressed by all the highly motivated and very articulate members of the armed forces that I met at the event. The arms industry incorrectly focuses senior military attention on very expensive (and lucrative) platforms rather than the highly flexible and low cost "Smart Cloud" technologies that they should be looking to understand and procure. Cyber is being used as an excuse for not doing anything - why not design a "Cloud of Things" with the best built in security.
I am extremely proud of of the UK's Armed Forces and the young men and women serving our country in uniform. This feeling was fully vindicated during the two days that I spent at the event. In an ever changing world our military must be properly equipped to protect our counties vital interests in a very dangerous world and that must mean being "Smart" and highly "Innovative" Open Innovation between the services and small and agile micro SMEs could be a very productive exercise. I learnt a lot from my 2 days at DSEI
#cloud #DSEI #aviation #defence #uav
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