U.S. Air Force Col. Scott Jackson, chief of the Defense Information Systems Agency‘s Joint Information Environment Solutions Division, addressed common misperceptions regarding DISA’s Joint Regional Security Stacks program.

Jackson spoke at the 2016 Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association’s Defensive Cyber Operation symposium in an effort to address questions about the power of the platform, the perception that the single security system offers a single point of failure and the versioning confusion among users, DISA said Tuesday.

The JRSS is comprised of 20 racks of equipment which support the ingest of large sets of data, provide the platforms for processing the data, and provide the mechanisms to help analysts make sense of the data.

It works to perform firewall functions, intrusion detection and prevention, enterprise management, virtual routing and forwarding, and provides a host of other network security features.

Jackson noted that JRSS provides user an option to define its own security processes and controls such as a virtual routing and forwarding feature that works like a “safe deposit box” for the user.

He also added that version 1.5 looks to cater to Air Force baseline requirements while version 2.0 will work to accommodate U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps requirements.

The Air Force’s implementation should be completed by the end of fiscal year 2017.

Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with top Egyptian defense officials in Cairo Saturday to discuss how the U.S. and Egypt can increase their collaboration to address regional threats, DoD News reported Tuesday.

Jim Garamone writes Dunford discussed U.S.-Egypt military cooperation with Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Hegazy, the Egyptian defense chief, during his trip to Cairo.

“Although we have a broader relationship between our two countries that is bigger than security, the military-to-military relationship can be a foundation,” Dunford noted.

He flew to London Tuesday to discuss ongoing campaigns against the Islamic State militant organization with British Chief of Defense Staff Gen. Nicholas Houghton and other military leaders, Garamone wrote in a subsequent report.

The report said he aims to collaborate with the U.S.’ coalition partners to develop and implement a transregional framework to counter violent extremism.

The Department of Homeland Security science and technology directorate has collaborated with Canadian organizations to test emergency response technologies and protocols along the Michigan and Ontario border.

DHS said Tuesday the fourth leg of the Canada-U.S. Enhanced Resiliency Experiments at the Blue Water Bridge crossing will work to test cross-border broadband and wireless networks, electrocardiogram tracing, information sharing and live video during a simulated emergency scenario.

The department noted that its partners in CAUSE IV are Defense Research and Development Canada’s Center for Security Science, Public Safety Canada and several provincial, municipal and non-government organizations.

The exercise began Tuesday and will continue through April 28.

CAUSE builds on the U.S.-Canadian Beyond the Border Action Plan that seeks to to connect, test and demonstrate the two countries’ technologies, DHS said.

The House Armed Services Committee’s defense authorization bill for fiscal year 2017 would hold back 50 percent of funds allocated for the Patriot missile defense system until the U.S. Army comes up with a plan to replace the system’s radar, Defense News reported Monday.

Jen Judson writes HASC would also require the service branch’s chief and secretary to assess whether the acquisition of a new radar would be feasible through the Army Rapid Capabilities office as well as prepare the terms of the competition for the procurement of the new radar.

According to Defense News, the military branch is set to conduct a competition for the new radar that would be integrated with its Integrated Air and Missile Defense platform.

Raytheon‘s gallium nitride active electronically scanned array radar and Lockheed Martin‘s Medium Extended Air and Missile Defense System radar are potential options for the new radar, Judson writes.

Sydney Freedberg Jr. also reported for Breaking Defense that the HASC tactical air-land forces subcommittee’s markup of the 2017 defense policy bill would also allocate $5 million in additional funding for the evaluation of the Army’s ground-based anti-ship missiles.

The proposed legislation would also require a study designed to assess the installation of the Mark 41 Vertical Launch System onboard the U.S. Navy’s amphibious ships and request for $10 million in additional funding to support research and development work on land- and sea-based electromagnetic railguns, Freedberg reports.

Rear Adm. David Lane, former U.S. Marine Corps medical officer and director of health services, has been appointed as the director for the Defense Health Agency‘s national capital region medical directorate.

NCR MD works to exercise authority, direction and control over the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, Joint Pathology Center and their subordinate clinics.

Lane currently serves as the director of the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the Defense Department said Tuesday.

Lane enlisted with the U.S. Navy in 1975 and has since remained on active duty and served on the medical staff at clinics including Naval Hospital Camp Lejeune, Naval Hospital Bremerton, Naval Health Clinic Groton, Naval Medical Center San Diego, Naval Health Clinic Newport and the U.S. Naval Hospitals in Rota, Spain, and Okinawa, Japan.

He has been deployed to the field as a surgeon or medical adviser for the Marines and has participated in disaster relief missions in Japan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Indian Ocean, Indonesia and the Philippines.

He also joined the Order of Military Medical Merit, is a fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians and is certified by the American Board of Family Medicine.

The four-decade veteran received numerous awards during his stint with the military including the Legion of Merit, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal, Henry Christian Award and several other personal awards.

Air Force Gen. David Goldfein, currently the service branch’s vice chief of staff, has been nominated to succeed the retiring Gen. Mark Welsh as chief of staff upon the scheduled completion of the latter’s four-year tenure July 1, the Pentagon said Thursday.

Goldfein became the Air Force’s second-ranked uniform officer in August 2015 after two years as director of the Joint Staff at the Pentagon.

Prior to Joint Staff, he led U.S. Air Forces Central Command in Southwest Asia for nearly two years and served in a two-year stint as director of operations for Air Combat Command before AFCENT.

Goldfein holds more than 4,200 flying hours as a command pilot.