Joint Mission Environment Test Capability (JMETC)

Mission — Joint Mission Environment Test Capability (JMETC) source

This program supports the Department's priorities to rebuild the military by matching threats to capabilities and re-establish deterrence by defending our homeland. The Joint Mission Environment Test Capability (JMETC) program provides a Department of Defense (DoD) enterprise-wide test capability to support system-to-system interoperability testing, mission-level environment testing, and cyber event operations, including cyber testing, cyber training, cyber experimentation, and cyber mission rehearsal. The JMETC program implements the infrastructure capabilities defined in the DoD “Testing in a Joint Environment Roadmap” to provide acquisition program managers a robust nation-wide capability to “test like we fight.” The JMETC program provides a persistent, distributed test and evaluation (T&E) capability that supports system development to measure and improve interoperability performance and cyber resiliency, and provide a software acquisition pathway that otherwise would not be readily available to Service/Component acquisition programs. The JMETC program is funded within the Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) Management Support Budget Activity because it provides test capability in support of RDT&E programs. By linking distributed facilities, as well as providing the necessary tools, services and subject matter expertise, the JMETC program allows acquisition programs to efficiently evaluate their warfighting capability in a realistic joint mission environment. The JMETC program has been aligned to national strategic guidance to advance the Department’s readiness to experiment and test the development of resilient, survivable, federated networks and information systems from the tactical level up to strategic planning, as well as test and assess cyber defenses that deter aggression and achieve peace through strength.

Mission — JMETC Distributed Test source

The Joint Mission Environment Test Capability (JMETC) program provides a Department of Defense (DoD) enterprise-wide test capability to support system-to-system interoperability testing, mission-level environment testing, and cyber event operations, including cyber testing, cyber training, cyber experimentation, and cyber mission rehearsal. The JMETC program implements the infrastructure capabilities defined in the DoD “Testing in a Joint Environment Roadmap” to provide acquisition program managers a robust nation-wide capability to “test like we fight.” The JMETC program provides a persistent, distributed test and evaluation (T&E) capability that supports system development to measure and improve interoperability performance and cyber resiliency, and provide a software acquisition pathway that otherwise would not be readily available to Service/Component acquisition programs. The JMETC program is funded within the Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) Management Support Budget Activity because it provides test capability in support of RDT&E programs. By linking distributed facilities, as well as providing the necessary tools, services and subject matter expertise, the JMETC program allows acquisition programs to efficiently evaluate their warfighting capability in a realistic joint mission environment. The JMETC program has been aligned to national strategic guidance to advance the Department’s readiness to experiment and test the development of resilient, survivable, federated networks and information systems from the tactical level up to strategic planning, as well as test and assess cyber defenses that deter aggression and achieve peace through strength.

Mission — JMETC National Cyber Range (NCR) Complex source

The National Cyber Range Complex (NCRC) is composed of cyber ranges and a secure distributed network infrastructure to service the cyber range user community. The NCRC currently consists of five functional cyber ranges, including the National Cyber Range in Florida as well as four Regional Service Delivery Points (RSDP) located in Hawaii, Alabama, Maryland, and Massachusetts. To enhance DoD cyber range test and training capability and capacity, the NCRC is being expanded with additional cyber ranges co-located with key Service organizations at Naval Information Warfare Center Atlantic (NIWC LANT), SC; Naval Air Station Patuxent River (NAS Pax River), MD; and 46th Test Wing Eglin Air Force Base (AFB), FL to support an increase of cyber testing of DoD systems as well as training of cyber warfighters. The JMETC Multiple Independent Level of Security (MILS) Network (JMN) currently links sites across the DoD, industry, and academia, providing secure access between cyber ranges, laboratories, and facilities. Both the cyber ranges and the network infrastructure are accredited to support multiple levels of security classifications, specifically configured to meet particular cyber event requirements. The NCRC investments have been aligned to support the interim National Defense Strategy in improving cyber defense, cyber resilience, cyber lethality, and the continued integration of cyber capabilities into the full spectrum of military operations. - The NCRC conducts cyberspace test and training events for the full spectrum of DoD customers including research, development, acquisition, testing, training and operational Cyber Mission Forces (CMF). The NCRC executes wide variety of event types including science and technology (S&T) demonstrations, developmental test and evaluation (DT&E), operational test and evaluation (OT&E), security controls assessments, capability assessments, cyberspace operations training, development and refinement of cyberspace tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP), cyber forensics/malware analysis) and cyberspace operations mission rehearsal. The NCRC enables acquisition programs to conduct cybersecurity test and evaluation in an operationally representative cyberspace environment enabling identification, validation and mitigation of vulnerabilities. The NCRC also supports training, mission rehearsal and certification of the CMF in support of US Cyber Command by enabling operational forces to efficiently evaluate cyber warfighting capability in a realistic joint mission environment to include bi-lateral and multi-national exercises. - The NCRC provides secure facilities, technology, processes, and workforce to rapidly create hi-fidelity, mission-representative friendly, neutral, and adversarial cyberspace environments. - The NCRC also facilitates integration of distributed organizations with different missions and workforce relevant to cyber operations (e.g., cyber operators, penetrations testers, cyber assessors, cyber observers, cyber analysts, etc.). The NCRC supports cyber activities across of a full spectrum of DoD systems, including weapon platforms, C4I systems, business systems, network devices, and other systems vulnerable to a cyber-attack. The NCRC extensively utilizes automation to minimize human error, to reduce the time required to set-up for a cyber event, and to ensure repeatable results. In addition, the NCRC employs post-event sanitization techniques on all assets after exposure to malicious code to restore back to a known, clean state, which allows for reuse in future events. - The NCRC has a multidisciplinary workforce with software, systems, network, virtualization, automation, system administration, and cybersecurity subject matter expertise. In support of successful planning and execution of hosted events, the NCRC workforce helps users define and refine their event objectives, assists with identifying and prioritizing potential vulnerabilities, designs virtualized cyber environments, develops customized traffic generation and instrumentation solutions, integrates 3rd party hardware and software, executes cyber events on behalf of the user, provides cooperative vulnerability and penetration assessments, performs detailed cyber analysis, and delivers detailed reports with actionable information to decision makers. In addition, the NCRC workforce supports both the Executive Agent for Cyber Test Ranges and the Executive Agent for Cyber Training Ranges, to identify and address relevant needs, define and promulgate standards, and seek efficiencies through focused investments.

Accomplishments & Planned Programs (2)