Just finished the CWIX 2021 NATO exercise at the NATO Modelling & Simulation Centre of Excellence
Rome – The Coalition Warrior Interoperability eXploration, eXperimentation, eXamination eXercise (CWIX) is an annual program of interoperability testing that is led by Headquarters Supreme Allied Command Transformation (HQ SACT) on behalf of the North Atlantic Council (NAC) and the NATO Military Committee (MC).
As a critical component of warfare development, CWIX is a NATO’s premier interoperability event that is operationally driven and technically supported across a broad range of interoperability validation and verification requirements, particularly related to Federated Mission Networking (FMN).
At CWIX, nations test current, near-term, experimental and future command and control capabilities. CWIX supports military readiness by putting an emphasis on preparing for NATO missions, with a focus on the NATO Response Force (NRF), Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF), and Initial Follow on Forces Group (IFFG).
Enduring the efforts of the past CWIX editions, the NATO M&S COE is taking part in this huge exercise being in leadership of two capabilities in the areas of application of Modelling and Simulation as a Service (MSaaS) and Cyber M&S with particular regards to examine, explore and experiment their interoperability in FMN environments consisting of two focus areas: Future Core Services and Cyber. In addition, the NATO M&S CoE within the Cyber focus area has proposed, developed and executed a Cyber Joint Vignette, proofing the concept for M&S support to future Multidomain Operations exercises in collaboration with NCIA (NATO Communications and Information Agency).
The M&S CoE team, supported by the industry teams, is working closely with more than fifteen nations providing and experimenting MSaaS and Cyber M&S services with more than six focus areas.
Several other international partners were attracted by these innovative capabilities and experimentational opportunities. The two capabilities the M&S CoE is experimenting in CWIX’ 21 are the Open Cloud Environment ApplicatioN (OCEAN) MSaaS capability in two configurations (FMN and Cyber Synthetic Environment), developed in collaboration with Leonardo, and the Virtual Security Operation Centre (VSOC), also in two configurations (Cyber and Operational Command); the latter was developed in collaboration with Leonardo and Cy4GATE.
The VSOC Capability aims to implement a cross-domain operational architecture to be able to stimulate from unclassified to classified networks with M&S Cyber effects services, real Cyber and C2I systems to enhance and improve the Cyber Situational Awareness. Interoperable FMN solutions were provided based on standards and best practices for Recognized Cyber Picture and Cyber situational and incident reporting automation on NATO FAS (Functional Area Service) provided by NCIA.
OCEAN is the M&S COE solution for implementing the NATO M&S as a Service (MSaaS) approach, offering a unique point of access to services through a web portal where the users can discover, compose, and execute functions in order to facilitate the delivery, versioning, testing, consumption, termination and disposal of services.
OCEAN extends traditional virtual environments for experimentation, test and training activities to a dynamic (cloud-based) environment able to instantiate virtual machines, containers, and virtual networks, in isolated or joined concurred sessions.
The unique and innovative nature of the MSaaS OCEAN capability has been appreciated by the Innovation Working Group and the exercise leaders being selected as one of the most innovative command and control capabilities of CWIX 2021 introduced during the CWIX VIP’s day held on the 22nd of June.
Beginning with an introduction by General Andre LANATA (FRA), NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, the selected capabilities have demonstrated within an operational scenario, how they will improve interoperability by contributing to NATO and national warfare development efforts.
Written by Lt. Col. Trimani Davide e Lt. Col. Cristoforo Russo
The NATO M&S COE is dedicated to the promotion of M&S in support of operational requirements, training and interoperability. The Centre act as a catalyst for transformation through the involvement of NATO, governments, academia, industry, operational and training entities, by improving the networking of NATO and nationally owned M&S systems, the cooperation between Nations and organizations through the sharing of M&S information and developments and serving as an international source of expertise for transformation in the related domain.
https://www.mscoe.org
NATO