On the Road Again with NTS: Deployable Communications Technology Forum

Team NTS, represented by Will Lester, VP of Engineering at NTS, and Josh Morgan, SOF Technical Account Manager at NTS, attended the 2022 Deployable Communications Technology Forum (DCTF) in Dublin, Ireland, last week. The forum’s mission is to “facilitate the direct collaboration and innovation between government and industry at all levels to develop solutions that directly impact mission success.” NTS supported this mission and the conference theme of “Achieving Information Dominance at the Edge” by providing a 2-hour training session promoting the “Cloud Native, Edge Dominant” mindset. 

Will Lester kicked off the training with a light-hearted game of “Cloud Native Compute Foundation (CNCF) project or Pokémon,” in which the audience was given a single name and asked to identify its category. Lester highlighted the sprawl of new technological solutions and the futility of a “catch ’em all” approach to Cloud Native. Instead, NTS suggested a “journey-based” approach. The training highlighted the importance of automation and provided practical insights into critical stages of the automation journey. 

The modern warfighting unit is being asked to adopt more technology in support of its mission while remaining agile and effective, using fewer resources – both as a result of budgetary constraints and the necessity of a mobile fighting force. The modularity of deployable communications technology is highly beneficial to mission adaptability, but that adaptability brings complexity. Automation helps alleviate the complexity of multi-domain operations by shortening build times, reducing errors, and improving personnel utilization. These benefits are useful in Garrison environments but critical at the deployed edge. 

As Lester and Morgan expanded on the idea of the automation journey, many audience members indicated that they are still in the early stages of maturity. While many of the conference sessions focused on cutting-edge and emerging technology, the uncomfortable truth is that most units still run their infrastructure on Excel spreadsheets using loosely organized automation scripts that only their “wizards” know how to leverage. As these units struggle to find and retain talent, they need tools and processes that help scale their automation efforts beyond a folder of scripts on someone’s desktop without adding to their tech deficit. 

 Tools like NTS MANTLE help accelerate the automation journey without requiring extensive re-training of personnel. MANTLE also integrates well with other tools in the automation ecosystem, such as Ansible, GitLab, and those from HashiCorp. While MANTLE can operate as a standalone solution, it is not an automation “silver bullet.” The path to Edge Dominance is paved with Cloud Native methodologies, which are supported by automation. 

Click here for more information about the automation journey and NTS MANTLE.

ABOUT NTS 

NexTech Solutions is focused on systems and network engineering to support cloud, hybrid, and edge solutions. We devote our time to truly understanding the unique mission requirements of our Federal clientele by building mission-driven solutions that meet today’s and tomorrow’s demands. Offering a diverse and customizable set of classified and unclassified capabilities focused on mission support.