An Cosantóir

An Cosantóir July/August 2018 www.dfmagazine.ie 22 | By tPR DyLAn hEnnIgAn AR, 1 ARMD CAV SQn F or me, joining the Defence Forces as an Army Reservist with the reserve element of 1 Armoured Cavalry Squadron in the DFtC in September 2015 coincided with starting third-level education at Dublin Institute of technology. I was aware that there would be a period of full-time work placement through my degree programme in networking technologies and I was also aware of the work of the Communications & Information Services (CIS) Corps. With this in mind, when the work place- ment period in was approaching in the third year of my course, I applied to undertake my placement with CIS. this was accepted, and already hav- ing a couple of years' experience in computer networks through college and contract work, I was attached to Comms Section, DFhQ CIS Coy, in Mckee Bks under Comdt John kenny, network Coordinator for the DF. Beginning June 2017, this was a particularly interesting time to join the unit - a special establishment under DCOS Ops, which has responsibility for the entire CIS network (CISN) and all services running on it, both do- mestic and overseas. Straight away, I got stuck in with work on the Virtual Desktop Architecture (VDA) Project, working alongside highly-skilled CIS staff and external contractors. This is an ongoing €12.8m project set out by D J6, and is the largest ICT project under- taken by the Defence Forces to date. It will revolutionise the CISN and the services provided on it for users, and will allow thousands of military users to access multiple security domains from a single desk- top interface. It will also increase cen- tralised management and security of the network in the midst of the global cyber threat landscape. Comms staff, in particular the techni- cians in the unit, took me under their wing from day one and we developed an excellent working relationship within the team. Working mainly out of DFHQ McKee and Newbridge, I had the opportu- nity to work in the areas of network hardware and software infrastructure, network security, and project deploy- ment, and gained experience working with strategic satellite communication links with UNIFIL and UNDOF. In August 2017, the opportunity arose to attend a weeklong cyber se- curity course - the International Cyber Security Summer School (ICSSS17) - run by the NATO NCI agency in The Hague, Netherlands, along with partnering institutions such as Europol, the Dutch Defence Cyber Command, academic institutions and technology compa- nies. I was the youngest participant of 60 international students on the 'single Force' Former and current personnel of DFHQ CIS Company, McKee Bks, Dec 2017. Photo: Sgmn T Dullaghan Students on the NATO NCI agency cyber security course in The Hague, Netherlands. Photo: Hague Security Delta 1 ACS Reserve element exercise in the Slieve Blooms in September 2017. Photo: Comdt I Stewart, AR

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