By Steven Petric
An industry perspective from Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions
MIL TECH INSIDER
Changing landscape for rugged
data storage
Awareness is mounting regarding the importance of protecting data-at-rest (DAR) on
deployed military platforms. Every time an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is lost, it
provides a stark example of the simple fact that what goes up must come down, and
there’s no guarantee that what comes down won’t end up in an adversary’s hands.
In 2019 alone, the media reported the loss of at least three UAVs in unfriendly territory
overseas. These and other similar losses have been driving the demand for encrypted
DAR recorders in unmanned vehicles, whether airborne, on land, or underwater.
Designers of these types of deployed platforms continuously look to increase per-
formance and functionality while also reducing the platforms’ size and weight, which
increases the pressure on engineers to cool hotter devices in ever-smaller packages.
In parallel, the role of unmanned systems is widening as they host more cameras
and sensors to perform new battlefi eld surveillance tasks, often requiring the cap-
ture, processing, and storage of an increasing amount of sensitive tactical data, which
heightens data-security requirements on deployed recorders. All of this means that
the space available for the DAR recording solution is already small – and getting even
smaller – while performance requirements for data storage are rapidly increasing.
Meanwhile, applications are driving the need to support faster network speeds as the
amount of data being collected continues to rise. A key goal in DAR storage solu-
tion performance is to support full line rate data capture and provide large amounts
of DAR storage. Think about this: High-performance sensors can’t be slowed down;
if the DAR recorder can’t keep up with the huge barrage of incoming data, then
critical data can be lost. As a result, the industry is seeing increasing requirements for
DAR storage systems that support 10, 40, and even 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE)
network speeds.
Higher data speeds result in increased heat and power dissipation, which competes
with the desire to keep devices as small as possible. New next-level memory device
technologies – such as higher speed and smaller size NVMe devices – have more
demanding cooling requirements. While SATA is the standard today and will continue
to be around for some time, the next generation of memory devices will require data
storage solution designers to expend more time and resources on cooling the memory
in ever-smaller form factors.
As security requirements are on the rise for DAR, so are the awareness and understand-
ing of encryption certifi cation levels. Just a few years ago, many system designers
and integrators needed to be educated about Commercial Solutions for Classifi ed
(CSfC) 2-Layer encryption, an NSA-approved approach for protecting classifi ed
National Security Systems (NSS) information. Today, awareness of CSfC as a viable
cost- effective approach for Top Secret and below encryption of DAR is relatively high
but understanding how to implement a CSfC approved encryption solution in a devel-
opment project is something designers still struggle with.
More specifi cally, the ways in which COTS vendors implement CSfC and the roles
and responsibilities of the system integrator when deploying this type of encryp-
tion must be clarifi ed to realize successful CSfC solution development and deploy-
ment. CSfC has increased its visibility in recent years, and NSA continues to provide
strong support to this program. Additionally, the time and cost required for certifi -
cation has signifi cantly decreased, in some cases saving multiple millions of dollars
and reducing time to deployment by
months or even years. Even better, there
are now numerous trusted integrators
who can help guide system designers
and integrators through the CSfC certi-
fi cation process.
An example of a certifi ed rugged COTS
data storage solution for protecting
Top Secret DAR is Curtiss-Wright’s DTS1
(Figure 1) , a Common Criteria-certifi ed
network attached storage (NAS) device
that is endorsed by the NSA and approved
by NATO with two certifi ed encryption
layers. It also supports an optional MIL-
STD-1275-compliant fi lter that applies
test conditions to the input of the vehi-
cle’s 28 volt electrical power system to
mitigate against high-voltage spikes,
long voltage surges, and ripples that can
reduce performance and reliability.
Going forward, we expect certifi cation
to become even more important. Simply
put, the risks and vulnerabilities will only
increase; network speeds will also con-
tinue to increase as the desire for more
sensor data generates ever-greater
amounts of data that needs to be stored.
In the coming years, data storage is
going to store more data at faster rates
in smaller form factors.
Steven Petric is Senior Product
Manager, Data Storage, in the Defense
Solutions Division at Curtiss-Wright.
Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions
www.curtisswrightds.com
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MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS
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Figure 1 | The DTS1 network-
attached storage device is a rugged COTS
data-storage device intended to protect
Top Secret DAR.
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