Bridgeworks CEO & CTO, David Trossell speaks to Battlespace about the growing need for WAN Acceleration in defending government data on the battlefield.
October 22, 2025
Knowing where to place military forces – whether army, navy, or air force – is critical to winning any conflict. During the Battle of Britain, for example, the use of radar by the British allowed RAF pilots to repel a Nazi invasion. Prior to radar, sound mirrors were the new technology that they hoped to use to hear Luftwaffe planes as they came across the English Channel. The trouble is that, compared to radar, they were only marginally effective due to their limited range, and in the face of fast and high-flying enemy bombers they struggled to allow sufficient time to respond.
Defence technology therefore needs to constantly evolve to allow military forces to gain any kind of decision or response advantage. With the exception of the Fairey Swordfish, which was used as a platform to torpedo Axis shipping, biplanes largely disappeared and were replaced by faster, more modern, and more nimble aircraft – such as the Spitfire.
Even the conflicts that have occurred since the Second World War have often accelerated technological development – including in Ukraine where we’ve seen the use of drones – and not just for surveillance operations, but for active service. Although information was critical in WWII, the flow of data was much slower than it needs to be in today’s battlespaces.
Success or failure
Having the ability to rapidly send, receive, analyse, process, and use data insight in a military operation can make the difference between success and failure – winning or losing a battle. Former UK prime minister Boris Johnson – according to the UK’s Ministry of Defence – once said: “The victors of the future will be those who are able to master data and new technology.”
That’s why there is a need for WAN Acceleration, which sometimes also referred to as data acceleration. Wide Area Networks (WAN) often suffer from the effects of latency and packet loss, which as distances grow, can significantly slow down the ability to transfer and receive data fast. It can also heavily reduce bandwidth utilisation, which can’t be resolved by buying bigger pipes.
The traditional approach often has been WAN Optimisation, but the trouble is that it can’t send and receive encrypted data. Before it is sent any encrypted data has to be decrypted using security keys, and the same key have to also be available at the other end of the WAN to re-encrypt the data. So, the fact that the data is sent unencrypted means that it is vulnerable to cyber-attack, and potentially to even being diverted away from its destination.
With security needs being more pronounced today, SD-WANs have gained attention. They are a great technology, but even with artificial intelligence (AI) they perform better when they have a WAN Acceleration overlay. That’s because the AI used in SD-WANs is often created as an afterthought compared to WAN Acceleration, which from the outset has used AI, machine learning, and data parallelisation to expedite encrypted data at speed over large distances.
Agnostic with defence data
Can WAN Acceleration send and receive defence data? In short, yes. This technology is data type agnostic, and highly secure. Not even the staff at Bridgeworks can see what is being transmitted. They can’t don’t know what the company’s clients are sending – whether in defence circles or in healthcare organisations such as CVS in the US. My staff only care about improving the throughput of secure, encrypted data with little or no human intervention by mitigating latency and packet loss. They don’t need to handle any of the data the technology helps to accelerate.
WAN Acceleration, which shouldn’t be confused with WAN Optimisation, is the only way to prevent packets of data from becoming congested as they flow along TC/IP networks. An example of a WAN that is used by just about everyone on the planet, and which relies on TC/IP is the internet.
To managed data flow, WAN Acceleration uses purpose-built AI and machine learning that has been integral to the technology from the outset to manage data parallelisation. It controls the flow of data in such a way that it mitigates latency and packet loss by preventing data from getting clogged up, allowing to flow much faster and more freely while increasing bandwidth utilisation by up to 98%. Subsequently, it outpaces WAN Optimisation by 200 times.
Obfuscating enemies
So, whether you are looking to improve data analysis for Command and Control, to improve the sharing or sensitive data with troops on the ground or wanting to back up and restore sensitive data rapidly, the answer has to be to use WAN Acceleration – particularly in the guise of PORTrockIT. It can also obfuscate bad actors, cyber-criminals, and hackers, by making it harder to divert data for their own malevolent purposes.
In my 2016 article for Techerati, ‘The importance of data velocity in a connected battlefield,” I said:” Nothing should get in the way of the systems involved, and yet network latency can make supposedly real-time data, into outdated data that can lead to the wrong decisions being made. Latency can be an unseen killer of one’s own forces. However, accurate and timely data, as well as true real-time data analysis, can lead to a strategic advantage that could make the difference between winning a battle, and losing it.”
Latency and larger data volumes
Modern WANs increasingly have to handle larger volumes of data too. The more data there is, the larger the potential issues that latency and packet loss can cause as there will be more data to transmit. Despite this challenges, the UK’s Ministry of Defence remarks:
“Data will be the horizontal enabler that will optimise operational and business outcomes, informing better, faster decision-making and Command and Control, nationally and internationally, across all five domains and with our partners across government, allies and industry.”
In my own article, I commented: “Of the four Vs, data velocity is particularly vital because the more up-to-date the data is, the more invaluable it will be to a military commander. However, as data comes in different varieties, there is a need have the capability to check its veracity, to ensure that the information gleaned from it is accurate. Volume poses an ever-greater challenge today because data volumes are ever-increasing – creating noise.”
Data: ‘an enduring strategic asset’
The MOD’s vision is for defence data to remain “an enduring strategic asset, effectively exploited and driving sustainable battlespace advantage and business efficiency.” It adds that “data has always contributed to success in Defence, it’s fast becoming our lifeblood. Every decision we make is increasingly data-driven; from multi-billion pound investment and divestment choices, to life-or-death situations handled in a split second on the battlefield, to defending against the increasing volume of cyber threats.”
‘Speed, clarity and confidence’
Adam Hugill, Senior Defence Business Development Manager at Envitia remarks: “Modern warfare is no longer defined by firepower alone. It’s shaped by the speed, clarity and confidence with which data enables decisions. As Ukraine has shown, the edge now lies in rapid fusion, decentralised command, and algorithmic support.”
Also in his blog on LinkedIn, ‘From Data to Decisive Action: How Defence Can Unlock Information Advantage,’ he says Ukraine is demonstrating the critical advantage of rapid technological adoption and innovation in modern conflicts:
“By deploying affordable AI-enabled drones, smartphone targeting applications, and commercial satellite intelligence, Ukraine has established that technological agility – not just military size – can determine battlefield outcomes. This existential struggle has accelerated military transformation that might otherwise have taken decades.”
Faster and more accurate access to battlefield data
So, whether data needs to be sent to a naval commander on the high seas, or a tank commander in the field, or be analysed by offices in a command and control centre, there is a need to use a technology such as WAN Acceleration to stay ahead of the enemy by having faster and more accurate access to battlefield data. Yet cyber-security is another side of the coin, which needs to be a top priority to prevent unauthorised access, and to ensure that the enemy can’t use highly classified and sensitive data to give their forces a strategic advantage.
The problem is that the encryption of data for security reasons can slow down data flows to a trickle. This is caused by the nature of the underlying protocols used in the connected battlefield of today. This is because TC/IP often suffers from a reduction performance with high latency networks. Fortunately, WAN Acceleration – which is a patented technology – is uniquely available to address the issues created by latency, packet loss, and poor bandwidth utilisation.
According to the National Institutes of Health in the US, ‘Data Saves Lives-The U.S. Military Must Build a Real-Time Combat Casualty Care Data Ecosystem for the Future Battlefield.’ By having real-time data available, the US military’s Joint Trauma System can better manage high casualty volumes, reduce evacuation times, and improve logistics. As it is data-driven for the purposes of reducing battlefield mortality, there is also an opportunity with WAN Acceleration to save lives.
