Multi-Domain Command and Control and the Case for Containerisation

Dammit!??Every time I think I have a handle on all the technology advancements in the Defence domain, I find out I’ve been using a basic term incorrectly for years.??Today it was all about SWaP (Size Weight and Power) budgets (long story, kind of embarrassing!).??

So why was I even reading up on this kind of thing???I was learning more about Multi Domain Command and Control (MDC2) or Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) and the benefits of Containerisation in achieving mission success.

Multi Domain Command and Control / Joint All Domain Command and Control

MDC2 and JADC2 have become pervasive terms, however there are few descriptions that give an answer to the questions “how did they emerge and what is the difference?” ?Part of the answer is as simple as it being an emerging construct and the title and definition have evolved over time.?The rest of the answer is based on the similarities:?All-Domain operations is the strategy for integrating and coordinating command and control operations simultaneously across air, land, sea, space, cyber and electromagnetic domains.?

A RAND Corporation paper (Here) takes it one step further and provides the recurring themes in both definitions:??

(1)?the use of cross-domain effects in conjunction with or in lieu of one another,

(2)?the ability to share information across domains, and

(3)?a framework for joint and combined mission command to enable cross-domain effects and information sharing.?

Linking this to statements made in the Australian Defence Force’s strategy documents, MDC2/JADC2 is how to concurrently defeat threats from peer-adversaries and those adversaries from the grey zone which capitalise on cyber technologies.?

?When the mission is this critical, agility and flexibility is everything.?This doesn’t mean being unstructured, it means taking the right approach to avoid being locked in and unable to respond to a changing environment...whether that be war-fighting or corporate.

?The Right Approach

?I want to jump straight in to talking about how Containerisation can help MDC2/JADC2 but that is “situating the appreciation”. Military folk will recognise the phrase but for others: it means putting the cart before the horse and creating a conclusion before you’ve done the analysis.?

Firstly, we must talk about open, hybrid infrastructure and the application of modern application architectures.?The reason for that is because the modern battlespace is characterised by its heterogeneity.?

Whilst this is the most professional characterisation, it is perhaps more accurate to refer to the environment as a seething mess of digital infrastructure that includes edge assets, public/private clouds, embedded weapons systems software and a host of IoT – all built separately, over a long period of time and for different purposes.?

?Only a hybrid cloud architecture can provide a consistent, standards-based approach to development, security, and operations.?It’s a smarter architecture that allows for workload portability, orchestration, and management across multiple environments.

The need for this smarter architecture is driven by three major shifts:

1. The?modernisation?of critical workloads to build scalable applications at speed.
2. The?adoption of Kubernetes?to orchestrate applications flexibly across any environment.?
3. The growing use of operational?AI and edge?applications to create data-driven insights that shape business outcomes.?

The convergence of two powerful forces—the need for profound innovation and hybrid cloud architecture—leads us to a strategy that is simple and clear and consistent with IBM's mission: to lead the adoption of hybrid cloud and AI, and to work with clients and partners to fully exploit it.

?This is the reason IBM joined forces with Red Hat, and it continues to be the mission that IBM is laser-focused on.

?Defence’s Need for Containerisation?

Let’s go straight to the technical definition.?Containerisation is the packaging of software code with just the operating system (OS) libraries and dependencies required to run the code to create a single lightweight executable—called a container—that runs consistently on any infrastructure. More portable and resource-efficient than virtual machines (VMs), containers have become the de facto compute units of modern cloud-native applications.

Containerisation allows Defence to significantly enhance the utility of deployed and legacy IT as well as provide rapid deployment?to the warfighter via?DevSecOps.?For every ship, plane, and tank there is only so much SWaP?budget?(there’s that acronym properly used!) and containerisation at the edge is the solution.

The timescale of modern warfare means that the software needed to support MDC2/JADC2 must be created, deployed, and scaled faster.??In addition, hardened application containers have become the standard for deploying traditional and AI/ML applications and natively enable a “build once, deploy many” approach aligning to the distributed and dynamic demands of MDC2/JADC2.

?Defence's?challenge for?containerisation is to?exploit its full?potential (including emerging trends?such as AI, 5G and even quantum computing)?and evolve?to a 'software-defined-everything' model based on zero-trust principles.

?To ensure containerisation benefits the MDC2/JADC2 environment you need a range of tools to support the aspiration of cloud-native application portability. ??The goal should be a single platform for application development and deployment across all environments, which enables developers to deploy apps without any hardware dependency. That platform should also employ a container orchestration platform to automate the deployment of containerised applications across all these cloud environments, including security, load balancing and scalability. That’s the ultimate in flexibility and efficiency.

Summary

I have a single overriding goal when it comes to the application of new technologies and approaches:??Always be curious!?

Keeping up with the latest concepts and principles allows for a greater capacity for relevant recommendations and better decision making – not unlike the MDC2/JADC2 vision to share intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance data, transmitting across many communications networks to enable decision superiority.

Frameworks and doctrine can only be effective if they are supported by the right capabilities.??The benefits of Containerisation to support MDC2/JADC2 are clear but need to be supported by the right suite of tools and products.??Finally, the capabilities required to better secure the technologies, applications and data involved in MDC2/JADC2 must be proven throughout the entire architecture.??

This security focus is a defining characteristic of the entire IBM/Red Hat portfolio.??

Be curious!?Check out more Here.