Often referred to as unified threat management (UTM), these appliances combine a firewall with powerful processors and a variety of software gateways to stop threats that launch from both outside and inside the network.

via SonicWall UTM — FedTech Magazine.

via ARCserve 12.5 Product Review — FedTech Magazine.

“A little over 10 or 11 months ago, Lockheed Martin made investment decisions in particular that looked at where the customer set was going — some of their higher priority needs,” said Jim Quinn, vice president of Lockheed Martin’s Information Systems and Global Services-Defense. “This was driven both internationally as well as domestically, and the importance of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in supporting operations around the globe.”

Lockheed Martin initially intended that AML would provide its civilian and defense customers a way to evaluate how well technologies worked together, and provide a testbed for connecting sensors to enterprise service-oriented architectures such as the Distributed Common Ground System, Quinn said during a press briefing at the Association of the U.S. Army annual meeting in early October. Now, the company is considering whether to partner with contract aviation companies to lease the capability to the DOD and other government agencies on a contingency basis, he said.

via Army fuses airborne sensor lab with ground networks — Defense Systems.

The system, called Sledgehammer, “is a combination of an airborne electronic support system named Airhammer, that was produced by L-3 Communications Applied Signal and Image Technology in Linthicum Heights, Md., and some existing government developed electronic attack capabilities,” said Kristen Kushiyama, business development coordinator for public affairs at CERDEC’s headquarters in Fort Monmouth, N.J. “It is flown and operated on board the rotary-wing vehicle, and it finds and jams signals from hostile forces. Sledgehammer can be installed and operational in about an hour on several versions of the UH-60,” she said.

via Army demos electronic jammer for helicopters — Defense Systems.

Still, the changes the Pentagon has announced for the next 16 months will be significant. The heightened role of the NSA will be reflected in a fourth star. From now on, the NSA director will be either a four-star admiral or general, and this person will lead a new U.S. Cyber Command, dubbed CyberCom, wrote Defense Secretary Robert Gates in a June 23 memo to military leaders.

via Cyber-overhaul – C4ISRJournal.com – Military Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance.

However, DOD has to compete for available capacity on commercial satellites with media and telecommunications companies and other high-volume satellite communications customers.

One of those providers is Xtar, a joint venture of Loral Space and Communications and Hisdesat Sevicios Estratégicos. Xtar’s commercial X-band service is now available as part of the Defense Information Systems Agency’s Defense Information Systems Network Satellite Transmission Services-Global program and through the General Services Administration.

“Hisdesat was formed to basically manage the Spanish military communications satellite program,” said Denis Curtin, Xtar’s chief operating officer. “They do some other things, but that was the first reason. Xtar is 56 percent owned by Loral, 44 percent owned by Hisdesat, and is a U.S. managed company.”

via X-band offers cure for congested spectrum — Defense Systems.

That’s the sort of task that VT Group, formerly known as VT Milcom, has performed several hundred times during the past four years. “We got into the containerized shelter business initially about four years ago,” said Scott Bohman, VT Group’s general manager. “We got involved in some air traffic control solutions being installed in Iraq for the Air Force and then worked some communications shelters with [Air Forces Central] for overseas work, [and we] did a couple of shelters on the Iraqi oil platforms in the Persian Gulf.”

via Sturdy containers offer shelter from the storm for network equipment — Defense Systems.

As evidence of the Navy’s continuing reliance on NMCI, the network recently gained more customers: the headquarters of Commander, Second Fleet C2F and the Second Fleet’s newly established Maritime Operations Center. MOCs are regional command and control centers that give joint and Navy fleet commanders an overview of their forces location and status, in addition to other information that help commanders make decisions.

The goal of using NMCI for the C2F MOC is partially to enhance decision-making through improved collaboration, but the need for increased cybersecurity was also a major factor, Navy Capt. Jeff Link, C2Fs director of command, control, communications, and computers, said in a statement issued by C2F’s public affairs office.“Working under tight restrictions and timelines, the coordination between the organizations involved in transitioning the systems to NMCI worked out extremely well,” he said.

via Navy lays course for Second Fleet migration to NMCI — Defense Systems.

But a variety of new circumstances — many of them created by policy rather than technology — are rising to potentially disrupt DISA’s forward march: the potential loss of staff during a headquarters move scheduled for 2010, setbacks to a next-generation command and control (C2) program, and organizational friction arising from the creation of the Cyber Command.

DISA’s rebalancing act — Defense Systems.

“Given the statutory and regulatory boundaries, like water, we tend to take the path of least resistance,” Montemarano said Aug. 7 at DISA’s Forecast to Industry. “We will exploit existing contracts to the maximum extent possible.” He added that that wasn’t limited to DISA or Defense Department contracts and that DISA would use any federal contract to procure services.

DISA to rely on existing contracts — Defense Systems.