According to Dave Asprey, DARPA – the US agency that specialises in technology research - is looking for innovative ways to use the cloud to execute applications and cities the agency as saying that “the cloud computing paradigm has not been effectively exploited in embedded military applications, for reasons related to performance and correctness constraints.”
Asprey says that the embedded applications the agency wants to use the cloud for include applications for command and control of a submarine, in-field data or analysis apps, and image-data processing systems that unmanned aerial vehicles use on board, according to the solicitation.
The definition of the cloud, he notes, seems to be so fuzzy that it’s okay to say you want to use it “when the applications are minimally specific to the particular resources in use.”
“I have no idea what that means”, he says in his latest security posting.
“What I do know is that it’s unlikely that the cloud as it’s commonly described is going to be able to provide mission-critical in-field military apps any time soon”, he adds.
The problem, he goes on to say, is that most cloud resources are unsuitable for mission-critical systems, with most providers offering three nines availability (99.9%) while other architectures are capable of delivering five or more nines (99.999%).
Clouds, says Asprey, require networks which are relatively easy to disrupt. You don’t, he adds, have to hack the signal to break the cloud, just mess it up enough that it’s not a signal any more.
But it gets worse, as he observes that clouds require networks which are power hogs, and in the field during military operations, power is at a premium, especially for extended operations.
Put simply, he says, if a cloud or network gets compromised, your military assets could be turned against you.
“A better model for using clouds with the military is the ambient cloud model where processing and autonomic behaviours are as distributed as possible, tied to a high availability cloud-based command and control centre”, he notes.
“The trick here is that connectivity to the cloud will be erratic and spotty in the real world, so the set of cloud enabled military equipment forms an ambient cloud, but commanders can only change instructions whenever a piece of the cloud checks in with command and control”, he concludes.