The Next Generation Distributed Operating System

Andy Grove of Intel stated, “only the paranoid survive.” Change is inevitable. A nation’s security is no different. As technology moves forward, securing and outfitting the warfighter must also keep pace. Therefore, the “central challenge for DoD is to accelerate the development and deployment of 5G-enabled capabilities, while ensuring those systems – as well as those of our allies and partners – are robust, protected, resilient and reliable.” “This [5G] ubiquitous high-speed connectivity will transform the way the military operates.” No matter who you talk to, 5G is synonymously and predominantly linked to communications hardware; hardware that is magnitudes faster, more configurable, and more flexible than legacy hardware. 5G has all the hallmarks and hype of a game changer. It also means that without a holistic change in our strategic approach to information and interoperability we will simply fail faster. 5G has the potential to provide dramatic improvements in our overall DoD operations but it must leverage our existing system capabilities. Simply put, you don’t “throw the baby out with the bath water.” There are trillions of dollars in existing, and still critical, hardware, software, and infrastructure, in place that will need to be able to communicate and interoperate and enable the transition to a fully operational and manageable 5G infrastructure. That previous discussion above necessitates a reimagining of how we approach the implementation of a 5G capable environment. 5G’s success will hinge upon the DoD’s ability to rapidly introduce 5G functionality while ensuring that existing infrastructure is also leveraged and not just left behind. That means that not only does the 5G introduction usher in hardware changes but inevitably software and infrastructure as well. This proposal will specifically focus on the latter components while addressing the 5G implementation to enhance, improve and extend operations of the existing DoD communications, compute, storage, and data processing infrastructure.