Q&A: Richard Williams

Written by Harrison Donnelly

MIT 2009 Volume: 13 Issue: 9 (October)

Previously, Williams was chief of the Transport Engineering Division and responsible for system engineering activities related to the Department of Defense teleport program, satellite communications (SATCOM), including military and commercial satellite and ground systems, wireless network systems, terrestrial networking including local, metropolitan, and wide area transport systems, network security, the transition to Internet Protocol version Six and for strategic communications. He also served in the Army Signal Corps at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., and received the Meritorious Service Medal.

Williams is a member of the IEEE and the AFCEA. He has published technical papers, given presentations at conferences and was a lecturer for the AFCEA Professional Development Center and the Marine Corps Communications Officers School. He has received numerous awards for special and outstanding service, and was selected to the Senior Executive Service in July 2003. He is a graduate of Lehigh University with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering.

Q: What is your primary role as the principal director of engineering for DISA?

A: I have two major roles. The first is to direct activities associated with DISN transport and IP network engineering, strategic nuclear C3, national leadership communications engineering, DoD enterprisewide systems engineering, and cross-program integration engineering. To accomplish this, we have established two engineering centers. The Systems Engineering Center is led by Gerry Doyle, and is where we manage and solve DISA internal technical issues, DoD-wide technical issues, and where we execute our role as the DoD executive agent for standards. The GIG Engineering Center, led by Alan Lewis, is where we architect, design, develop, implement and sustain communications/ network engineering solutions and capabilities that support an array of users ranging from the White House to the deployed tactical warfighter. My second major role is to serve as one of the DISA senior champions for the technical work force. Within DISA, we have approximately 900 engineers and computer scientists. In my senior-champion capacity, I help the agency develop and maintain a first-class engineering work force to fulfill DISA missions.

Q: What major engineering challenges do you see as DISA prepares for the future?

A: DISA has evolved significantly during the past decade to become an end-to-end provider of information technology services. The DISA capability portfolio includes C2 applications, IA, computing services and an assured IP-based, high-bandwidth optical network. Providing these capabilities to users in a seamless fashion is an enormous challenge. Success requires multiple technical disciplines and a solid systems-engineering approach. For example, software and network engineers must work together to roll out any new capability, given the interdependence of these solution components. The applications developers cannot simply assume that the network will always provide low-latency performance, and the applications design needs to account for this.

Our challenge is twofold. First, our engineering processes must be sufficiently agile to bring together the right technical expertise at the right time during a program’s life cycle. The second challenge is the ability to forecast and develop the necessary emerging technical skill sets. Work force technical skill-set relevance and evolution is essential for both our government and contract work force. We recognize these challenges and are currently addressing them. Additionally, we continue to serve as the assistant secretary of defense for networks and information integration technical arm and act as the ‘joint technical advocate’ for the department. The net-centric environment and focus requires us to identify and address key enterprisewide technical issues. One example is the placement of enterprise services on the network. We are developing technical guidance to ensure that as programs plug into the network and deliver services, there is high probability that the services perform as promised. We do this in part as the enterprisewide systems engineer and DoD executive agent for standards.

Q: Can you provide some details on how DISA is solving these challenges?

A: Regarding the systems-engineering process, DISA has applied significant attention and effort over the past three years to establish a standardized systems-engineering process, wherein the correct set of engineering and programmatic documents and subsequent technical reviews are accomplished in a thorough, consistent and repeatable manner. We have closely coordinated this effort with the DISA Office of the Component Acquisition Executive. In the area of skill-set development, we piloted the Technical Workforce Development Project [TWDP] in FY09. The TWDP contains a set of training courses arranged by technical areas to train and re-tool the work force. Example skill-set areas include TCP/IP, IA, SATCOM/wireless, optical transport, Web services and collaboration services. Curriculum choice and development is based upon coordination with a number of hightech companies and adoption of their training techniques. A key enabler for this effort is the use of Web 2.0 technologies, such as blogs/wikis, to document progress and establish a collaborative learning environment and enduring knowledge base. Additionally, we leverage and integrate our extensive lab and modeling and simulation environment to provide the necessary hands-on training experience.

Q: What new technologies are driving your technical skill sets?

A: As we look to the future, a number of emerging technologies must be incorporated into the DISA portfolio. These include:

• New optical technology 40G and 100G
  
• Integration of carrier Ethernet
  
• Generalized Multi-protocol Label Switching and evolving Multi-protocol Label Switching and flow-routing technologies
  
• IP and optical encryption technologies
  
• Unified communications and collaboration within an IP environment
  
• Wi-Max and related wireless technologies
  
• Information assurance for IPv6
  
• Cloud computing and virtualization
  
• Mash-ups and other Web 2.0 technologies.

Q: What partnerships have you engaged in to accomplish your mission?

A: Fundamentally, our engineering partnerships with other government organizations and with industry are focused on spurring innovation to be more effective and efficient in delivering IT capability. Chief Technology Officer [CTO] David Mihelcic drives innovation in DISA, and we work closely with him as he implements this strategy. We have established a number of key partnerships. First, we have implemented six Cooperative Research and Development Agreements [CRADAs] with industry partners. The CRADA focus areas range from open-source software development to advanced satellite communications architectures. We use these vehicles to gain insight into emerging technologies and how we can apply them to our missions. Another example is our working relationship with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency [DARPA]. Specifically, we are performing lab evaluation of the DARPA “control plane” project, which examines flows in IP networks to improve performance when transporting voice, data and video. It is a radically different approach than the current queuing and routing of packets that is accomplished in traditional routers. These technologies are intriguing, especially in limited bandwidth environments experienced at the edges of the GIG.

Q: To what extent are DISA engineering activities directed toward providing capability toward the edges of the network?

A: Some examples are the Digital Video Broadcast-Return Channel Satellite [DVB-RCS] system; UHF Integrated Waveform; and our work to improve senior leadership executive aircraft communications. DVB-RCS is a SATCOM-based capability that provides significant bandwidth for unmanned aerial systems, SIPRNet access, and other critical applications in the CENTCOM AOR. Since DVB-RCS is based on commercial standards, the deployment was very rapid and is scalable to increase bandwidth quickly. The UHF Integrated Waveform [IW] is a DISA-developed improved UHF waveform that can more than triple the capacity of current UHF SATCOM channels, improves flexibility of carrying data and voice traffic, and significantly improves voice clarity.

Recently, we successfully completed the initial operational demonstration for the first phase of the IW upgrade. Availability of the software for service fielding is planned for early 2010. Our work with senior leadership executive aircraft communications includes assessing performance of communications links that transit aerial and terrestrial layers. Clearly, airborne platforms are on the edge of the network, and identifying and resolving root-cause performance issues is very challenging. We have developed a prototype assessment tool, composed of COTS products that include simulation software, to help identify and solve performance problems. The M&S software allows us to look at the flight path and aircraft orientation [attitude, roll and heading] to determine if aircraft maneuvers or flight path may impact communications-link performance.

Q: Can you provide additional comments on the innovation strategy?

A: We have been using the Joint Concept Technology Demonstration [JCTD] process to help drive innovation. The DISA CTO orchestrates these efforts to identify, address and solve challenging problems. In the engineering directorate, we support the CTO and follow his lead. For example, commanders want the ability to quickly re-task the network to support changes in mission requirements or react to threats. In FY10, we will have a JCTD called Integrated SATCOM Operational Management [ISOM] that addresses this need. The premise is to use machineto- machine interactions via a policy-based management engine to accomplish this. ISOM takes advantage of the Joint IP SATCOM Modem [JIPM], a DISA-managed product development, which connects into the DISN for deployed reach-back networks from DoD teleports. ISOM collects situational awareness from the deployed network via the JIPM and then uses a policy engine to adjust bandwidth allocations. This will enable commanders to adjust network priorities in near real-time. Partners on this effort are MITRE, APL, JPL, STRATCOM and CENTCOM. We are very excited about the potential benefits of this work and possible application of the capability into other critical areas such as cyberthreat reactions.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?

A: As we started this conversation, I indicated that DISA, and specifically DISA engineering, has changed dramatically over the past decade. Literally, we are at a unique point in time where the DISA mission and value to the DoD is growing rapidly. Whether it is developing solutions for enterprisewide technical issues or solving program-specific issues, our technical work force is postured to successfully meet these challenges. An added challenge is the agency’s BRAC move to Fort Meade, Md. We take this challenge very seriously and are working closely with our partners within DISA to ensure that we maintain our technical work force viability throughout the transition period. I am confident that we will minimize the impacts and continue to perform as a world-class provider of IT services to our DoD and national leadership users. ♦

Back to Top