In the second part of our conversation, Nitin discusses how the ICT Portal is powered by a multitude of DoD data sources, and dissects exactly where that data comes from, how it’s delivered to the portal, and what innovative capabilities and features can be performed leveraging that data.

Here is what he had to say:

GSR: Where does the data that powers the ICT Portal come from? Can you talk a bit about the data sources, as well as how the data is delivered to the ICT Portal?

Nitin Bhat: When we look at a customer’s needs, they’re typically global in nature. Their needs do not stem from a geographic standpoint and are not constrained to a specific location. A lot of the customers we serve have locations all across the globe. They will usually need to have something up and running in a certain amount of time.

From a satellite standpoint, we would start with user terminals. User terminal is a very broad definition, as it could encompass laptops, phones, video devices, satellite modems, antennas, etc. User terminals could include a whole host of devices that could be typically found at the tactical edge. Those user terminals are all sources of data for us to gather. Then we can analyze problems and map everything out for customers.

The user terminals then typically talk to satellites. And the satellites – no matter if they are in GEO, MEO, or LEO orbits – all become sources of data for us to ensure that they are healthy and functioning properly. From there the data, voice, or video comes down to teleports. And this teleport becomes another data source. There could be power devices or huge antennas there. There could also be customer infrastructure there that carries the traffic from the satellite standpoint. All of that – again –  becomes another set of data sources.

From there, typically the data travels to the public Internet, government gateways, or to a data center where it then goes to the cloud. But for us, everything is viewed as a point for collecting data. If it touches the customer’s network in some fashion, we collect all that data.

“Capacity management is another feature. Satellites do not have unlimited resources or capacity to provide data. We need to manage the capacity in the right way.” -Nitin Bhat

Data might also travel through a terrestrial network as it goes from point A to point B. SES Space & Defense has its own global terrestrial network, the Global Communications Network (GCN). The GCN meets certain security standards from a government standpoint. That also becomes a data source.

GSR: Once data is fed into the ICT Portal, what are some of the features and capabilities the portal can perform with that data?

Nitin Bhat: Broadly, the ICT Portal can be viewed as something really useful for our own operation center and for our customers. And the uses don’t necessarily need to be different. Some could overlap for both.

A basic feature of the ICT Portal could be as simple as a ticketing system, where you let the customer open their own tickets by logging into the portal, avoiding the need to call a 1-800 number to alert people to a problem. We may want to create tickets on our own because we are proactively monitoring a customer network. When we see something that doesn’t seem right on the single pane of glass, we can auto-generate a ticket and start looking into it.

Another example would be troubleshooting aids. When we see something go red, we might say, “Hey, what happened? Did we get any alarms? Did we get any up-down status from these devices that we were monitoring?” It helps someone who’s troubleshooting. Customers now have these aids to examine and decipher where the problem could have stemmed from.

The third feature is reporting. Reporting is where you’re relaying to the customer, “The network has been up this month for 30 days. It has been up for 99.9 percent of the time.” This enables us to show the customer that we are meeting the obligations from an SLA standpoint. The network is indeed performing the way that it has been designed and is behaving correctly.

It’s also useful for the customer to know how their devices are configured and what parameters are set. From a management perspective, if a device isn’t operating properly, a customer can pinpoint that device, open a return merchandise authorization (RMA), and return that hardware. The ICT Portal will be able to relay the hardware’s serial number, and how it malfunctioned, and assist the customer with the logistics piece of it.

Capacity management is another feature. Satellites do not have unlimited resources or capacity to provide data. We need to manage the capacity in the right way. That becomes another feature where we can tell the customer how much capacity they’re using today – at this moment in time – to accomplish what they’re trying to do from either voice, video, or data.

“Decision makers can also leverage the ICT Portal to predict future trends and proactively plan and allocate resources, budgets, and time to whatever capabilities they are planning for.” -Nitin Bhat

Spectrum monitoring is another feature. Blue-on-blue or red-on-blue interactions can cause spectrum interference. Customers need to know whether that’s impacting their communications or data transfer on their satellites. We need to monitor the spectrum on the satellites, and the ICT Portal allows you to do that.

GSR: In terms of the military, what benefits does the ICT Portal deliver to key decision-makers during warfighting or other critical missions?

Nitin Bhat: It depends on the audience because each government stakeholder might want a different view of what’s going on. Some may be interested to see whether there have been any adversarial attempts to jam communications, and they might want that piece of data. However, a person who is running the program may simply want to know if the delivery of services is occurring on time and at the right level of uptime that they wanted.

Someone who oversees running the network might want to be able to access troubleshooting tickets to improve certain network functions in the future. Someone at a very high level may want to know how AI applications and processes could be integrated into the network, to enable automated and smart functionalities.

Decision makers can also leverage the ICT Portal to predict future trends and proactively plan and allocate resources, budgets, and time to whatever capabilities they are planning for. The ICT Portal pairs perfectly with the DoD’s mission to construct a resilient space architecture, due to its ability to determine whether multi-orbit or multi-constellation solutions would be better utilized for specific missions.

To learn more about the ICT Portal, click HERE.

To read part one of our conversation with Nitin, click HERE.

The post The Data Sources that Power the ICT Portal appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

SES Space & Defense recently launched its Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Portal, an advanced capability that enables transparency into all facets of the DoD’s networks and facilitates seamless management and operations of the military’s terrestrial and space assets – all on a single pane of glass.

To learn more about the different components of the ICT Portal, as well as the benefits and capabilities it delivers to its customers, the Government Satellite Report sat down with Nitin Bhat, Senior Vice President of Engineering at SES Space & Defense.

Government Satellite Report (GSR): For readers who may not be familiar, what is the ICT Portal?

Nitin Bhat: When we were first conceptualizing the ICT Portal, SES Space & Defense set out to build something that could help our own Network Operation Center (NOC) and manage all our customers. But we also wanted to develop a capability that could help our customers manage their service level agreements (SLA), get the reports that they wanted, and see how they were performing – from one single place.

That led to the development of the ICT Portal. We call it a single pane of glass because we want one place for users to go. From there, customers can navigate through menus and sub-menus based on a user’s access level and get their job done.

GSR: What benefits does the ICT Portal deliver to its customers?

Nitin Bhat: The first benefit is transparency. Often a customer might call in with an issue and need to know how the problem started, who was responsible, and what was done to troubleshoot it. But if customers have access to a tool where they can investigate the health of the network for themselves on a daily basis, it provides them with a level of transparency where they can see exactly what’s going on. Is the network behaving in accordance with what the customer signed up for, from an SLA standpoint?

“You should not have an architecture where you cannot scale or store data where you can’t analyze it. We set out to ensure that [the ICT Portal] is scalable.” -Nitin Bhat

Customization is another benefit. Each user may have a different set of requirements when using the ICT Portal. If you are a program manager, you might want to look at a specific view. If you’re an engineer or a NOC technician, you might just want to be able to look at tickets, open them, close them, and monitor them. If you were in a contract, you may want to look at the reports to make sure that we are meeting our obligations every month. The ICT Portal enables different sets of users to log in with their own needs and look at what is relevant to them. The ability to customize is a massive benefit.

The third one, which I think is a big advantage for us as a company, is being able to respond to customers quickly and resolve their challenges as fast as possible. And if we can internally accomplish that, by knowing exactly what’s going on within each part of the network, we can quickly expedite the problem resolution. That’s a big benefit to us, which eventually the customer gets to take advantage of.

GSR: You mentioned that the ICT Portal is a web interface that is on a single pane of glass, but what are the actual design elements that drive the Portal? How is it structured?

Nitin Bhat: Software drives a lot of what we do today. But 10 to 20 years ago, there were different approaches to how people would get access to data. In the old days with Windows or other platforms, there was a tendency to design software packages that were not modular, couldn’t scale, and were not necessarily secure.

When we set out to design the ICT Portal, we wanted to break everything down and ensure that anything we design meets certain standards, because you don’t want it to be something unique to just your company. The ICT Portal is an open standards platform. It’s modular so you can build and add components to it. It’s also scalable because you’re collecting more and more data. You should not have an architecture where you cannot scale or store data where you can’t analyze it. We set out to ensure that it’s scalable.

“We wanted to make sure security was built from the ground up on all aspects of the design so that the final product was secure.” -Nitin Bhat

For it to be scalable, it has to be on the cloud, and it has to be modular. It must follow an IT service management model where each problem set is defined differently. You can add or detract from it, like incident management, problem management, change management, asset management, and so on.

Finally, the ICT Portal is designed to be secure. From a security standpoint, it is secure in terms of the software code itself and where you store data. It is also secured with authentication mechanisms to ensure that only the right users can log in with the proper access. The ICT Portal also meets some of the government security standards, in terms of the cloud, the risk management framework, and making sure the data is transported securely.

In essence, we wanted to make sure security was built from the ground up on all aspects of the design so that the final product was secure.

Be sure to check back for part two of our conversation with Nitin, where he examines the data sources that power the ICT Portal’s capabilities and features.

The post ICT Portal – Delivering Transparency, Customization, and Responsiveness to the Military appeared first on SES Space and Defense.