From the Exhibit Floor at GEOINT Symposium 2015

The exhibits at GEOINT Symposium 2015 this past week in Washington D.C. reflected the direction the government is heading with regard to new products, technologies and services.

The new government initiative of doing more with less has generated interest among a group of vendors in partnership with the Centralized Super Computer Facility (CSCF) program. Lockheed Martin, one of the vendors, has developed a Multilevel Secure ecosystem (MLS) using Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5+ for both single system image and for a cluster configuration. The focus of this system is to use MLS to enable data fusion and/or consolidate hardware systems rather than promote duplication.

The companies partnering in this endeavor include Lockheed Martin (Multilevel Secure Ecosystem), Seagate (Multilevel Secure HPC Storage), Red Hat (Open source operating system), SGI (Secure high performance computing solutions), CRAY (multilevel security (MLS) capability), Bay Microsystems (global high-performance fabric extension), Mellanox ( 100 Gigabit per second scalable networking), 35ViON Years (MLS-Ecosystem for Mission Data), Altair (PBS Professional, – job scheduling and management) and new at the conference this year, Crunchy (open source Crunchy MLS PostgreSQL extends PostgreSQL with Multilevel Security support), and Splunk (universal machine data platform).

Lockheed Martin also has an end-to-end, customizable solution for web and social media collection, processing, monitoring and analytics called LM WISDOM. Another interesting product from the company is iVIz or Intel Viz, a portable, scalable geospatial visualization tool that provides situational awareness capabilities and 2D/3D content to field users. It is not associated with a proprietary tool and makes sharing, adding and visualizing data in the field easier.

HP was also there to speak to the need for the cloud, analytics and data management, and to garner interest around HP services. As the government budget has shrunk, they are more in need of efficiencies such as the cloud and more collaborative tools. iSight is IC intelligence that provides a framework for how IT will be done in the next generation.

Orlando Figueroa, vice president, Federal Consulting and Intelligence Segment, U.S. Public Sector, of HP, feels that the federal government is moving from a climate where every agency with its own data is moving to shared data through the cloud, data warehousing and analytics. There will still be a need for an internal cloud but there will also be “community clouds,” for multiple agencies. These will still be firewalled from the rest of the world.

Altair ‘s Kirk Monroe talked about how enterprise services and IT architecture can help agencies come closer together. He said that the “gap is getting smaller,” that the government was “risk adverse, but now over 400 Fortune 500 companies have the same issues as the government. Best practices from those firms are beginning to permeate the government sector. Their security challenges are higher, but as Monroe pointed out, health care is very much like intelligence in its data challenges.

John Ratigan, president of iDirect Government, has a long career in satellite communication. Data can now be sent over a satellite link. They are using encryption, sensors built into ManPac, etc. They have the largest communication network in the military and have Combat Support Services with 4,000 terminals. “All of them are on our network, and military personnel can order everything they need this way. It can also be used to email to families, and for USO services like broadcasting football.”

More is being done from airborne platforms of “stagnant sensors,” those buried in the ground.

It was the first time at GEOINT for Pitney Bowes – MapInfo, where they demonstrated raster compression on the fly. With a 40 MB file they will not lose true resolution of data with this method.

The company has a federal sales team for selling “faster raster” as they call it. Joe Francica said the company will promote digital commerce to location intelligence. It is well positioned to do this, with its history on the Pitney Bowes side of shipping and customer engagement, and shipping is all about location. The MapInfo side comes with strong geospatial and location intelligence.

Harris Corporation acquired Exelis recently. Harris provides advanced technology-based solutions for government and commercial customers. Some of the systems they offer are tactical communications including, Tactical Radios and Individual Soldier Systems, electronic warfare and avionics, geospatial systems, air traffic management, weather and space and intelligence.

Dave Kornick, director of Geospatial Systems at Harris Government Communications Systems Division, talked about the value of the acquisition of Exelis, considering that this will bring the company closer to what they view as “the intelligent Earth,” being able to provide sensors of all varieties to monitor the Earth’s condition. Among the systems that Harris exhibited at the symposium were CorvusEye wide area motion imagery system, Geiger-mode LiDAR, object identification tracking.

Powered by Harris is the exactEarth real-time global maritime vessel tracking called exactView RT. It encompasses new satellite AIS architecture that gives real-time continuous satellite coverage for maritime. The satellites are networked together with crosslinks and communicate with multiple ground stations continually. This solution is in response for the need of real-time tracking of ships that is unavailable through a large part of the seas.

InQuisient launched some new tools at GEOINT based on its enterprise data management platform that helps government organizations mange data calls and large projects more efficiently. The Project Portfolio Insight tool provides an intelligent “big picture” solution for any large scale project portfolio management project. Using a single system and interface, users can track, review and contribute to managing numerous projects. The Data Call Central Tool is used to streamline the data call process that allows efficient collection of data from many places within the organization. The InQuisient platform is used in many intelligence organizations including the Department of Defense, and Homeland Security.

Droneware imagery content management and Knowvation geospatial intelligence from PTFS are two interesting systems demonstrated at the symposium. Droneware is a platform designed to capture, tag and manage and disseminate imagery from drones, something that didn’t exist a year ago. Droneware parses geospatial tags from sensors mounted on drones and UAS devices, from there the data is organized into an intelligent order. Knowvation GS has geospatial search and discovery capability that is used for analysis of large satellite imagery and GIS archives by intelligence and government agencies.

NJVC provides more “mission-critical” IT enterprise using cloud migration and hybrid IT enterprise management and monitoring. The company has been helping the federal enterprise since 2000.

These are just a fraction of the many companies that were represented at the symposium. Clearly, the focus is on some aspect of IT, security, spatial analytics and management of big data, that has the promise of being able to be used effectively by more stakeholders and to fill the need for timely, affordable, accessible technology to meet the ever-increasing demands of the world of geo-intelligence.

Tags: cloud, crowdsourcing, geointelligence, geospatial, GIS, Google Maps, imagery, iPhone, location, mobile, NASA, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, navigation, NOAA, remote sensing, satellite imagery, USGS

Categories: 311, 3D Cities, Airbus Defense and Space, analytics, ArcGIS, asset management, Big Data, BlackBridge, climate change, cloud, cloud network analytics, data, developers, DigitalGlobe, disaster relief, drones, eSpatial, Esri, Exelis, field GIS, financial services, geocoding, GEOINT, geospatial, GIS, Google, GPS, Hexagon, historical topography maps, HP, image-delivery software, indoor location technology, location based services, location intelligence, Magellan, MapInfo, mapping, Maptitude, Moasis, mobile, NASA, NGA, OCG GeoPackage, OGC, Open Source, resilient cities, Safe Software, satellite imagery, sensors, U.S. Census, UAS, UAV, UAVs, Uber, utilities

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