The National Science Foundation (NSF) has allotted $125 million for the development of mid-scale facilities where researchers may perform quantum, biogeochemistry and energy grid studies. 

NSF said Thursday that it will use these funds to finance three projects, each valued between $20 million and $70 million, that will consist of research expertise, equipment and instrumentation for pursued research topics, community engagement and education.

The first facility, titled the High Magnetic Field Beamline, will explore the quantum properties of materials via X-ray technologies. The Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source will host and develop this facility in partnership with the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory.

Second, the Global Ocean Biogeochemistry Array will deliver 500 robotic floats designed to gather data on chemistry and biology in the ocean. Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute will work with institutional and industrial partners to develop the array's robotic floats. The array will also support monitoring of the ocean's physical and biological health.

Lastly, the Grid-Connected Testing Infrastructure for Networked Control of Distributed Energy Resources will openly offer research assets and leverage data analytics to support energy grid studies and education. The University of California in San Diego will host this facility.

"U.S. researchers need cutting-edge tools to stay at the forefront of science and technology," said Sethuraman Panchanathan, director at NSF.

Lumen Technologies has upgraded its distributed denial of service (DDoS) Mitigation Service to increase response speed, the company reported on Tuesday. Lumen’s integrated features will help users protect web-facing assets and applications. 

"Lumen is focused on developing platforms that help customers deploy and secure the applications that power 4th Industrial Revolution," said Chris Smith, vice president of global security services at Lumen. "We leverage our insights to automate detection and response at a global scale, and this allows our customers to maintain the critical web-facing assets that power their businesses."

Lumen's new DDoS capabilities have integrated Rapid Threat Defense, a Three-Tiered Scrubbing Architecture and DDoS Hyper, which will  and reduce the risk of collateral damage during attacks.

Rapid Threat Defense is a software-based, automated detection and response service that will block threats and improve application security and availability. The solution has leveraged threat intelligence developed by Black Lotus Labs, which will increase application and threat visibility.

Lumen’s Three-Tiered Scrubbing Architecture is the company’s proprietary platform that will use a scrubbing approach with next-gen technology to mitigate attacks based on size and complexity. The company’s intelligent routing system will send complex attacks to the larger scrubbers to enable applications to continue to perform while under attack.

DDoS Hyper is part of the new Lumen digital buying experience, which will enable customers to order, configure  and deploy DDoS mitigation services via a self-service portal quickly.

"With the recent spike in DDoS attacks, the speed of response to new attacks is more crucial than ever before," said Martha Vazquez, senior security research analyst, IDC Research. "Service providers are at a point where they need to speed up response times to stop these advanced attacks from occurring immediately. Having an automated response that can prevent bad traffic from ever reaching the customer is critical.”

About Lumen

Lumen is guided by our belief that humanity is at its best when technology advances the way we live and work. With approximately 450,000 route fiber miles and serving customers in more than 60 countries, we deliver the fastest, most secure platform for applications and data to help businesses, government and communities deliver amazing experiences.

Dave Spirk, chief data officer at the Department of Defense (DoD), said DoD’s new Data Strategy focuses on the needs of service personnel and senior leaders involved in decision-making, Nextgov reported Thursday.

“Previously, we focused on ensuring that there were networks and transports to send packages of information and data, when and where it needed to go,” Spirk said Wednesday at a National Defense Industrial Association symposium. “When we talk about inside out, we're really talking about putting the warfighter and the senior leader who needs to make a better decision at the center of everything.”

DoD released in early October 2020 the Data Strategy to help the department transform into a data-centric organization that considers data as a strategic resource critical to maintaining operational advantage on the battlefield.

Spirk cited the lack of systems interoperability and enterprise data management as some of the hurdles to the strategy’s implementation and how the strategy addresses the Joint All-Domain Operations Command and Control concept.

“When you lay the data strategy out, and you really go to the principles inside of it, I think what you'll see even down to the vision statement is it really is about creating operational advantage and efficiencies,” Spirk said. “The operational advantage puts JADC2 right at the heart of the data strategy, and it was designed to be that way.”

The 2021 Federal Data Strategy Action Plan is expected to be released in December 2020 and agency chief data officers intend to see more partnership and data sharing opportunities in the next strategy, FedScoop reported Thursday.

Kirsten Dalboe, CDO at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said during a discussion at ACT-IAC’s Reimagine Nation ELC 2020 that specific measures in the next action plan could help advance the Federal Data Science Training Program and address confusion in data use agreements at agencies.

“Giving agencies the space to continue to mature their practices over the next year will be really important,” Dalboe said. “And I think a big area I’m hoping to see growth in for the Year 2 strategy is really around sharing, the coordination, the community aspect.”

Kshemendra Paul, CDO at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), said the VA is working with the Department of Defense on a joint analytics and data strategy, which will center on customer experience metrics with regard to joint policy development, analytics, data sharing and interoperability.