WARNER: “NECC is a program and a focus, but it’s really more about how we do business. This is all about enabling the warfighter to leverage the vast amount of information that’s out there to command and control forces as needed to accomplish missions in a dynamic, quick-changing, time-sensitive environment.”

Ninety interfaces tie into the Global Command and Control System–Joint, the Defense Department’s legacy cross-service battlefield system.

But most will be going away, says Air Force Brig. Gen. David Warner, director for command and control programs at the Defense Information Systems Agency.

Why—beyond the obvious systems management logistics? Because although those interfaces speak a variety of languages, many are duplicative or inflexible.

“If you need to change one interface, it causes a ripple effect throughout,” says Warner, who participated on a recent Federal Executive Forum panel in Washington about DOD’s net-centric operations.

It’s his job to phase out GCCS-J and, in its place, roll out the Net-Enabled Command Capability, the next-generation C2 system for users across the department and military.

NECC, designed to operate much like the Internet, will rely on a service-oriented architecture with services broken down by mission threads, Warner says. “So if you need weather, if you need intel, whatever it is, that information is made available and the consumer—the warfighter—can draw on that information.”

Modeling industry, DISA is establishing what it calls the Federated Development Certification Environ­ment. DISA has dubbed the environment “the sandbox” and will use it to develop and pilot NECC applications.

Besides NECC and GCCS-J, Warner also oversees the Global Combat Support System, Multinational Information Sharing program and Collaboration Force Analysis and Sustainment and Transportation ­system.

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