Background

A United States Air Force training center released a mandate to modernize training through increases in hands-on approaches and the digitization of legacy pen and paper training. The SMS team worked with stakeholders on a solution that would focus on consolidating resources and enable the trainers’ goals. SMS worked directly with personnel to help design the modernized training concept and deploy the infrastructure for a new, update network.

Method

SMS supported the design and deployment of the new network as well as the classroom training environments. The SMS team interfaced with training managers, specialists, and course instructors in order to understand the mission needs and develop a design that would sustain the solutions used to meet both the training objectives and the Air Force mandate. The objective of each solution varied depending on the specific training structure and environment. 

With an understanding of the needs of the instructors, SMS provided the engineering behind the setup and sustainment of the network infrastructure and virtualized classroom environments. The design and implementation of the network provided the infrastructure for the overall training modernization goals across 25+ buildings at the base, consolidating resources for all aspects of training including (but not limited to) virtual systems, software-defined networking, learning management systems, and file sharing.

Benefit

With the establishment of the training network, all distributed networks can be consolidated into a single environment with an emphasis on sharing resources and providing consistent functionality across all training squadrons. This alleviates budget concerns within the training groups and reduces the requirement on training personnel to set up and sustain their systems. By modernizing, operating, and maintaining an effective training system, SMS was able to increase the reliability of the systems and reduce the need for troubleshooting by trainers, enabling them to remain focused on the mission of training and preparing airmen for the field.