Big Data Analytics in C4I Systems

Analytics has been propelling military intelligence in a significant manner. With the inclination of armed forces towards integrated Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I) capabilities, information overload is culminating to a deluge of intricate data. A majority of the presently deployed software systems are not capable of being scaled to handle this ever increasing data. Big data analytics has emerged as one of the most popular technologies for analysis on huge data. Big data analytics can be used in C4I systems to quantitatively deal with the information overload, as well as to qualitatively improve intelligence assessments by gaining meaningful insights from such data. The decision-supporting capability of Big Data Analytics can play a crucial role in gaining the edge over the opponent. In this paper, we revisit the current design of C4I systems and envision an incremental approach to fit in the big data analytics in the legacy C4I systems. The paper also encompasses the life cycle of the big data analytics and its technologies applicable for C4I systems, which will make way for efficient real-time data mining, and effective visualization.