30 June 2010

JFCOM Wants - Get This - JOINT(!) Data Sharing

And they're serious enough to hold a conference about it!

Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, head of the Pentagon’s Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, began the symposium with a complaint about the failure to analyze and share intelligence in a timely manner with allies in Afghanistan. “We disable ourselves by an inability to share information,” he said. “We’ve got to [find] a way ahead immediately to improve information fusion” and to develop databases for tactical commanders. “There is no shortage of data,” he added, “but there is a dearth of analysis . . . and it has to be provided to our coalition partners freely so they can enable their formations.” Crucial to this effort is the creation of “mobile databases [that] provide real-time effective information for tactical commanders.”


Seriously though, FusionNet was doing this 6 years ago, with links to CENTRIXS and publication to the PASS. CIDNE still won't open their data, because, well, they're CIDNE.

Good thing Wortmann pulled the plug on FusionNet in favor of CIDNE, eh? After all, we wouldn't want to shitcan a system THAT DOES EXACTLY WHAT WE SAY WE NEED, 5 YEARS LATER, right?

By: Brant

3 comments:

Josh H said...

Good post - I remember the days of the FusionNet / CIDNE battle. I have subscribed to your rss. You may like my page and twitter at: http://agileflux.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

You must have been a contractor on FusionNet, still bitter about losing your job. If you were well read you'd understand that CIDNE and FusionNet held a best of breed and FusionNet came up short, but there is nothing wrong for you rooting for the underdog, even if they constantly lead you down the wrong path...

Brant said...

No... I was in grad school when the FusionNet-CIDNE wars were going on. I just got to watch the re-run of the same failed acquisition process several times over.

What I do know from extensive discussions with people involved in the entire process (on all sides) is that CIDNE's key advantage was not technological, but political. They had the right people in the right place to influence the right decision-makers. But I sat through a LOT of briefings about "when CIDNE finally implements x, y, or z" and every one of those were things that FusionNet was already able to do, three to five years earlier.