Q&A with Ernest McCaleb, Technical Director, CyberRange Architect, Mantech International Corporation.

Mantech Partners with Tegile to solve CyberSecurity Challenges.

Q&A with Ernest McCaleb, Technical Director, CyberRange Architect, Mantech International Corporation.

Question #1  What are the Security Challenges that Big Data poses?

Thus far, the Cyber Security Range has not conducted events targeting big data security challenges. We are currently speaking with a customer who has such a use-case and we are looking for a way forward. This is something we will most likely broach later FY16-17. That being said, Big Data methodologies have been used by our customers in our environment for various purposes.

Question #2 Cybersecurity and Cybercrime prevention are top of mind for a lot of Industries. What the main challenges?

There are numerous challenges. End-user education is paramount. Phishing attacks always work because they prey on human nature. That nature can be greed or simply inquisitiveness. We have learned that no tools, tactics or protocols can overcome uneducated end-users. They always give the bad guy a path into the environment.

Question #3 Can Big Data / other technologies be used to fight against Cyber Crime?

Yes. We are working closely with Tegile Systems using a DoD Cybersecurity stack to make user experience seamless and high performant.

Question #4 Tell us a little of about what Mantech does, and your role at Mantech?

ManTech was founded in 1968 to provide advanced technological services to the United States government. We began with a single contract with the U.S. Navy to develop war-gaming models for the submarine community. Over the years, our government’s technology needs have increased dramatically in scope and sophistication, and we have grown to meet that challenge.

For more than 4 decades, we kept a careful eye on where emerging technologies were taking the government, and we developed the resources to master those technologies—by staying close to our customers and anticipating their needs, hiring talented professionals to propel us into the future, and acquiring companies with proven capabilities.

Today, we are a multi-billion-dollar public company that provides the innovation, adaptability, and critical thinking our government needs for success in defense, intelligence, law enforcement, science, administration, health, and other fields—throughout the nation and in many countries throughout the world. We are now applying the lessons learned in the unforgiving arena of national security to help the private sector protect networks and critical information. Mantech has 7200 employees.

My Role: As a Technical Director and the architect of the Cyber Security range my responsibility is to insure the environment is operationally realistic while integrating new technologies that add efficiency. A key part of our success is due to not being afraid to integrate/leverage new disruptive technologies. We are ever mindful that our efforts have a direct effect on National Security.

Question #5 How does Mantech use Tegile today in your solution? Can you tell us a little about what Tegile features help you solve your business problem?

We had previously used and/or tested numerous storage platforms. Storage of all types including traditional disk, hybrids and all flash. From work we did with a partner we became exposed to Tegile. We did our own evaluation and it proved to deliver just what we need.

The Cyber Range has been morphing over the last few years. We strongly evolving to a more software defined model. To this end, we found that the Tegile, with it’s rich APIs and multi-protocol support suited our needs perfectly.

Tegile offers extreme flexibility in their appliance. This coupled with a highly competent sales and engineering team were differentiators.

Question #6: What other products/solutions do you use along with Mantech?

Cisco Sourcefire: Yes.

Cisco Lancope: No

Cisco UCS (Intellistack link on Tegile.com, cisco.com) yes we use UCS but not intellistack per se.

Cisco Nexus (Intellistack link on Tegile.com, cisco.com) Yes, strongly leverage Nexus (9k,7k,5k, 3k and 2k).

Question #7 What are some of your future programs and plans for expansion?

The Cyber Security Range is experiencing explosive growth within the Department of Defense. We intend to continue to expand with our existing customer as well as become aware to Homeland Security and the Intelligence Agencies.

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Case Study

Tegile Systems, ManTech International, and Cypherpath Team Up To Deliver a Converged Infrastructure for the US DoD Cyber Range

Sponsored by Tegile.

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