Information Integration and the Future Force

The Air Force’s Chief Information Officer and Chief of Warfighting Integration, Lt. Gen. Michael Peterson, says that the Air Force is behind industry when it comes to network operations. Speaking Thursday at a Capitol Hill breakfast meeting, Peterson said that the Air Force is pushing the information envelope through activities like the recently completed Joint Expeditionary Forces Experiment, however the service needs to streamline its network operations. Today, there are 17 USAF network operations and security centers around the world, but technology advances, quips Peterson, make that number “15 too many.” The service is working first to eliminate seven, and then another eight, and ultimately going toward a fully automated “lights out” network operations function. Within a year, Peterson said, he expects to be able to patch every computer in the Air Force within 72 hours.