Air Force Traffic Now Flowing through JRSS in San Antonio

by Air Force Space Command Public Affairs

10/7/2014 - JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-LACKLAND, Texas  -- The 26th Network Operations Squadron  and the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) led Joint Regional Security Stack (JRSS) Migration Team (JMT) successfully migrated Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland network traffic through the newly installed JRSS at Joint Base San Antonio (JBSA) on Sept. 14.

The migration supported more than 36,000 Air Force members and is an important milestone in the Department of Defense realizing the Joint Information Environment (JIE).

"This was an enormous effort by the Joint Migration Team," said Lt. Col. Jim Hewitt, 26th NOS commander and JMT director.  "While the team deployed a similar security architecture currently in the Pentagon, they did so in a fraction of the time."

The migration and consolidation of network capabilities throughout the DoD were mandated at various levels, from Congress down to the Secretary of Defense and below.  These mandates included the desire to move to a single security architecture to minimize the attack surface accessible by malicious actors across the globe.  In the case of JBSA, the attack surface was reduced by one third.

To implement this single security architecture, DISA, the Army and the Air Force agreed to and began working toward a network architecture solution that meets the needs of all involved.  The Navy agreed to migrate starting in 2017. The JRSS is the infrastructure (integrated suite of network and defensive hardware and software) chosen to support the single security architecture.

Brig. Gen. Kevin Wooton, Headquarters Air Force Space Command communications and information director, said, "Air Force traffic within JBSA is flowing through the JRSS node there.  This represents Air Force initial operational capability for JRSS and we now join the Army officially in that status."

Through the dedication of multiple engineers, information technology professionals and Air Force cyber weapon system partners, a solution was developed to migrate JBSA-Lackland users through multiple routing changes.  The implementation plan included careful network traffic monitoring for customers at JBSA-Lackland resulting in no user disruptions to the base user population.

"We will be able to deploy 11 stacks across the continental United States and just migrated over 36,000 total customers (JBSA-Lackland and Fort Sam Houston) behind the JBSA stack in less than one year," Hewitt said.

The JMT installed network equipment and worked hand in hand with DISA and Army partners to move network traffic and security devices from the Air Force Gateways to the JBSA JRSS.

"All in all, it was another example of extraordinary effort by the entire team involved," said Wooton, "including the AFSPC staff, 24th Air Force, Life Cycle Management Center, the Air Force Network Integration Center, the Cyberspace Support Squadron, and Air Staff, as well as folks from U.S. Army Network Enterprise Technology Command and DISA."