Top-Flight Cyber-Security Infrastructure in Montgomery? Absolutely.
September 2015
By David Zaslawsky
Photography by Robert Fouts
Montgomery does have it all. No, really it has it all when it comes to the cyber infrastructure at Maxwell Air Force Base and Gunter Annex.
Here is what Montgomery has:
One of two military cloud centers.
One of two Department of Defense global service desks.
One of two locations running both Air Force and Army traffic across the same network.
One of two Joint Regional Security stacks that secure traffic and reduce potential hacker entry points in the Air Force network.
The Program Executive Office for Business and Enterprise Systems that develops, acquires and sustains Air Force software and hardware.
Computer Integration Environment that is a test facility for new software and changes to existing software. Montgomery is the “only site for testing and upgrades to existing Air Force business systems,” said Joe Greene, vice president of Military & Governmental Affairs for the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce.
A redundant energy source at Gunter Annex.
College of the Cyber Air Power, which is being launched this year at Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base.
“Montgomery has all those pieces that don’t exist anywhere else in one single location,”
Greene said. “Everybody has different pieces, but we have them all.”
The Defense Information Systems Agency is located at Gunter along with the 26th Network Operations Squadron and the Program Executive Office for Business and Enterprise Systems.
“We have a unique cyber infrastructure that will make Montgomery a center for potential rapid innovation and a test bed for improving cyber security within the Air Force and Department of Defense,” Greene said.
Greene said that the cyber infrastructure “has the potential for drawing companies to have a presence in Montgomery to get in on the ground floor of new and exciting cyber partnership.”
He said that the Cyber College at Air University “will bring together the best minds in the country to resolve the nation’s cyber challenges.”
He said that “with all of these pieces that come together we can become the virtual sandbox for testing different kinds of theories and applications and processes. Not only can they bring together the great minds to do these things, but to be able to rapidly innovate and test that to make sure it’s effective.
“There is no other location that we believe that has all the pieces in the same location that allows for that to happen.”
