More than 20 staff of the NCI Agency from Mons and The Hague deployed to Camp Adaži, near Riga (LVA) during the time from 18 October until 10 November.
The Agency team supported the Joint Task Force Headquarters (JTF HQ), which is staffed by JFC Brunssum, for SFJZ13 and the NATO Response Force (NRF) 2014. The JTF HQ was in the centre of the exercise with other locations in Poland, Lithuania, Germany, Italy, Norway and the Baltic Sea.
NCI Agency staff contributed to the success of SFJZ13 mainly in two key areas of the exercise:
- Staff from the Deployable Functional Services Section (Mons) and from C2 and Operations Services (CAT4-6, The Hague) installed and run all functional services that were required for the JTF HQ.
- Service support included NCOP, CoreGIS, LC2IS, TOPFAS, LOGFAS, JOIIS, NITB, JOCWatch, ICC, FAST, PLATO, NIRIS, JChat, DHS, and TTE.
NCI Agency staff from The Hague took responsibility for cross-domain services with funding by ACT PoW, in particular:
- Provision of a prototype Information Clearinghouse as part of the Comprehensive Approach (CA) with a bi-directional release function between the Mission domain and NATO Unclassified, and further to non-traditional partners on the Internet. The effort was done in close cooperation with Brunssum BIM, IKM and CIMIC/J9 staff in order to get feedback on the developed operational processes and usability of the tool.
- Provision of the prototype of a deployable IEG Scenario C that closes a severe gap for the provision of CoI services between static HQs operating on NATO Secret and deployed components operating on Mission Secret. Provided services were JChat, NIRIS, ICC and NITB.
The Distinguished Visitors Day saw services provided by the Agency in the centre of attention: The NCOP as part of the JOC demo, and the Information Clearing House in the CIS area. Feedback from visitors was very positive and showed a high level of interest. Our COS, Gen. Andrey used the opportunity to visit deployed Agency staff and get informed about their roles in the exercise.
At SFJZ13, NCI Agency staff proofed its capability to support exercises and future operations in a deployed environment. SFJZ13 was a venue that perfectly demonstrated how the Agency interfaces with its various customers at the NATO Command Structure and the NATO CIS Group.