NCW: Lockheed Martin unveils its shop of tech goodies | ADM November 2012

With the opening of its new Canberra facility this year, Lockheed Martin has begun focussing its Australian interest on ICT, already a huge part of its US business.

“A lot of people still believe we just do airplanes,” Director of Lockheed Martin’s NexGen Cyber Innovation and Technology Centre (NCITE) in Canberra, Troy Landry, said. “We are still introducing ourselves in the Australian market place. There is still not a clear view of what we can offer in practice.”

As the largest provider of ICT services to the US Government for 18 years with a portfolio of some 2,700 customer programs, Lockheed Martin is still misunderstood by its potential Australian clients.

In Australia it commands some 750 staff throughout Australia and billing around $200 million a year with a lot of this attributable to Defence and the Australian Taxation Office. But Lockheed Martin is in competition with many other contenders that may be better known for their technology practices.

Canadian-born Landry’s mission had arrived to improve awareness with its present and future clients in Australia.

New kids with security offerings

“We are the new kids on the block,” Landry explained to ADM.

In July, Lockheed Martin changed that by launching NCITE in Canberra in the Lockheed Martin building in Kingston along Canberra’s Wentworth Avenue and establishing its permanent Australian headquarters.

Dubbed a “cyber fortress” its $10 million investment offers 900 square metres of floor space to house 200 full time staff, making Lockheed Martin sixth largest non-Government employer in the ACT.

Notionally a show-case, NCITE can simulate in real-time many of the issues that may hobble enterprise and defence level computer networks. This includes a 24-rack data centre with green energy credentials, three collaboration areas, two reconfigurable seminar rooms, cloud computing platforms and an eye and ear-candy, high definition video teleconferencing, with global site connectivity.

Offensive and defensive control testing can be deployed on a separate network to understand what works and what may still be required to ensure a secure environment under such conditions.

Through its recently announced Solution as a Service (SolaS), Lockheed Martin claims the system will offer private and public clouds while maintaining security of its operations.

These capabilities are delivered by leveraging technologies from Lockheed Martin’s Cyber Security Alliance™ partners including CA, Cisco, Intel, McAfee, NetApp, Trustwave and VMware.

It offers the opportunity to test various cloud scenarios using methods derived from cyber security attacks.

Only the third such centre in the world, the NCITE follows institutions established in Gaithersburg, Maryland and Farnborough in England.

After Titan Rain

“Cyber security is the cornerstone of everything we do,” Landry said.

All of his team have or are in the process of earning the CISSP® - Certified Information Systems Security Professional qualification. Each year the accreditation has to be renewed and updated from a corporation called ISC2.

“This ensures we our team are focused on matters that help our customers’ security,” he said.

Lockheed Martin has sustained significant cyber security breaches dating back to attacks known as Titan Rain thought to be of Chinese origin back in 2003.

“We grew up and focused on advanced persistent threats for the security intelligence centres (SIC) that operate round the clock. It’s about identifying and treating It as campaign management and detection,” Landry said.

In 2011, it came again under attack. According to its news release the company detected a significant and tenacious attack on its information systems network. Hackers used false SecurID electronic token to gain access.

However its information security team detected the attack swiftly. It reports it took aggressive actions to protect all systems and data and concluded the systems remained secure and no customer, program or employee personal data was compromised.

So what is the difference between a security information centre (SIC) and an NCITE?

SICs are focused on cyber security only and are designed to protect Lockheed Martin’s security. NCITE’s are focused more broadly on ICT solutions and to assist Lockheed Martin’s clients, potential or actual.

Staffing of a typical SIC is up to 200 staff. An NCITE group would be smaller perhaps less than 50. It allows Lockheed Martin to bring customers into a collaboration type space.

Try before you buy

Technologies do not always do what the salesman says they do, Landry said.

“We want to bring that technology here in advance of the customer to understand where we are.”

NCITE offers to take that “bleeding edge” technology down to leading edge for our customers and lower the risks for our customers, Landry said.

“Try it before you buy it. We are going through the pains of doing it first. We can show clients that here.”

Landry said the NCITE can help the customer get the maximum out of their software. He instanced the case where a client wanted its asset management tool to be used as a discovery tool over the network.

They may look for a third party to supplement their requirement. NCITE helped the company understand that the facility being sought from a new solution was inherent already in their current software.

Another initiative that distinguishes NCITE from its competition lies with its supportive approach to local small and medium enterprise companies (SME), that want to grow their businesses.

NCITE has worked with the local industry associations as well as the public sector agencies to identify suitable companies that may offer value adds to Lockheed Martin’s various programs.

Each Wednesday it invites two companies to show what they have to offer. NCITE gives them feedback if it does not meet the mark or gives them direction where there might be more interest in taking up of their projects if they varied their road maps or directions.

Lasting usually 45 minutes SMEs are offered an opportunity to do a “show and tell”. About 40 per cent of the SMEs NCITE interviews see their solutions later tested in the NCITE lab for a sustained review.

Landry evaluates whether the SME solution has a potential for integrating into Lockheed Martin’s major programs. He estimates about five percent of the companies will make it through to that last gate.

Local companies that have received a tick approaching the final evaluation gates include Quintessence’s quantum encryption technologies developed at the ANU.

While the program offers an oppor tunity for local SMEs to get into a larger supply chain, NCITE does not guarantee direct business.

However the SME can then say they are partnering with Lockheed-Martin which can often make the difference between losing or closing a deal, especially with a public sector prospect.

Landry hopes to find at least two SMEs are year that he can refer to his overseas NCITEs for follow-up and potential partnering opportunities with the view to growing their business and giving Lockheed Martin first dibs on their solutions.

Art of the possible

The goal of the centre is to show customers, the “art of the possible”.

“It allows different ways of thinking about their challenges. It’s all about collaboration here,” Landry said.

A customer may have cyber security problem they can’t deal with. Landry’s team would engage with the client to identify a desired outcome such as getting rid of an intruder.

But Landry says it is more pre-sales support than consultancy or troubleshooting in practice.

“We have an open door policy. If it’s a large problem the NCITE has the ability to bring in hardware players such as Intel or McAfee to their collaboration area. This may occur in person or if necessary through NCITE’s modified version of Cisco’s Telepresence system which offers latency free video-conference facilities.

Its TelePresence room is so natural you may be tempted to look behind the screen for a phoney device or check whether the off-site person may actually be in the next room via closed circuit TV.

NCITE staff have seen participants trying to hand a document to another person on a display though that person may be across the Pacific or somewhere in England.

Lockheed Martin are not unique with their use of TelePresence. But NCITE uses it more than others companies do.

A conventional Cisco TelePresence has just three displays. NCITE added three new upper screens for separate IP displays and a robust lower screen, optimised for data and graphic displays.

Some companies in Australia may also aim to package their offering or pre-sales dealings along similar lines. But Landry doubts they could do it at the level of expertise available at NCITE.

Landry recalls a customer expressed an interested in Lockheed Martin’s touted green capabilities.

“So we brought them in and set up the TelePresence systems had relevant experts online, talking just like we were talking now,” Landry said. “It was very effective for them to understand the capabilities that Lockheed had in power.”

They may be new kids on the Canberra block. However NCITE is finding its shop of tech goodies promises to set a new standard for information exchange and partnering for defence and enterprises in Canberra.