Army networks test limits of commercial technologies.

• Position: Joint Network Node

A tactical communications system currently deployed with Army battalions in Iraq and Afghanistan proves that commercial technology, for the most part, can meet military requirements. But the system also accentuates the difficulties of incorporating rapidly changing commercial technologies into lumbering Defense Department procurement cycles.

The Army began ridding the new satellite-based communications system, called the joint network nodes, or JNN, in 2004. While it normally would have taken the Army a decade or more to field a system of this complexity, it was only a matter of months for JNN to come to fruition. An influx of war-emergency funds and urgent requests from commanders for modern battlefield communications propelled the procurement and fielding of JNN to every unit tagged for Iraq or Afghanistan deployments.

While typically the Army would not field a system until it has been approved for combat use by an independent testing agency, JNN was needed in such a rush that the Army waived the traditional tests. Now, after two years in operation, JNN's performance finally will be assessed by the Army Test and Evaluation Command.

There are no military-unique components in JNN except the humvee shelter where the system is set up for battlefield operations, says Michael LeBrun, an Army acquisition official who oversees JNN procurement. Inside the shelter, he says, all the components of JNN are items purchased from commercial vendors: Cisco routers, Juniper firewalls, IBM Blade servers and commercial satellite moderns, among others. Even a satellite dish trailer towed behind is similar to the one that TV networks bring to Iraq to cover the war, LeBrun says.

There was no time for JNN to be tested before it went to war, he says. "We've done contractor tests. ATEC did a formal assessment in the theater," but the first JNN formal test will take place in June.

The program demonstrates why the Pentagon's procurement structure needs to change, LeBrun says. Often times, programs require two years' worth of tests before they are fielded. That extended cycle is incompatible with the pace of commercial communications and network technology, which already would be obsolete by the time the testing is completed.

"The testers haven't figured out how to test networks," says LeBrun. "They will tell you that they know how to do it, but it's a challenge."

To be able to acquire JNN and deliver it to the units quickly enough, the Army had to jump through many...