| | AUGUST 20199CIOReviewC2C24 provides not only the information warfare platform for operational advantages it provides is a platform for innovation and significant savings in resources through those process reformscan be agile and shift with our industry partners as they move to the next, best thing. The importance of addressing the foundational issues from an end-to-end architecture perspective is the key to success. Unlike many commercial industries that operate on a single, homogenized network with almost limitless bandwidth, the Navy's networks and communications infrastructure have long been an amalgam of networks, standards, development environments, and processes patched together but with many seams. These network and communications systems work, but were not designed holistically to provide the best inter operability, efficient movement and discovery of information, cybersecurity, or ability to rapidly insert new technology. Ships at sea operate in austere bandwidth environments that require satellites to "reach back" to shore to exchange data. These ships must also be able to operate when satellites are not available so off-the-shelf solutions are not viable. With the exception of cruise or merchant shipping businesses, commercial industry typically does not face these same challenges. With C2C24 and its four pillars, we are breaking with past practices and providing the structure, standards and information warfare platform that will be key to enable an agile operational information environment. Over the years, disparate efforts have focused on specific pieces for data or transport improvements individually, because tacking the whole problem seemed insurmountable. But trying to fix the architecture piecemeal simply hit the tip of the iceberg and did not address data in the context of transport, which is critical for the Navy particularly to our tactical edge with ships at sea. C2C24 brings that holistic end-to-end architecture of how to standardize the data and move it efficiently to get the right information securely, to the right decision maker, at the right time. The advantages of implementing the C2C24 framework go far beyond the technical and are resulting in process re-engineering across the Navy of legacy constructs that are now fundamentally different in the new more agile environment. This results in interoperability and capability improvements and enables significant process reform across the enterprise, as old methods simply don't apply in this more agile and standardized environment. Most of the challenges faced are not technical, they are cultural or institutional as innovation forces people to see things in a new way. Creative thinkers across the Navy are questioning every process and procedure that existed before, starting with a clean sheet of paper to see the art of the possible. By shedding old processes to wring out even the smallest efficiencies through reform and being willing to rapidly jettison old ways of doing business, we become more a more agile force, able to leverage new technologies quickly on our platform. C2C24 provides not only the information warfare platform for operational advantages it provides is a platform for innovation and significant savings in resources through those process reforms. As we say in the Navy, this is an "all hands on deck" effort, and the spirit of creativity and innovation in the Navy are showing the force is up to the task.
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