AMS505 Military Information Systems Course Introduction AMS505 1'1 Winter 2001

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AMS505 Military Information Systems Course
IntroductionAMS505 1.1 Winter 2001

• Major Greg Phillips
• Royal Military College of Canada
• Electrical and Computer Engineering
• greg.phillips_at_rmc.ca
• 1-613-541-6000 ext. 6190

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What is an Information System?

• What is the current Information System supporting
  a dismounted platoon commander?
• how about a division commander?
• What other Information System support might our
  platoon commander want?
• how about a division commander?

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A (Deceptively) Simple Model
The Information System
Processing
Input
Environment
Output
Users
Storage
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AMS 505 Military IS
This course will be concerned mainly with
technologies and issues surrounding the four key
information system elements.
The Information System
Processing
Input
Output
Storage
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Why Invest in IS?

• to do the same thing better
• greater accuracy and consistency, fewer errors
• more timely information, more informed decisions
• to do the same thing cheaper
• total cost of IS is often less than salary
  equivalent
• to do the same thing faster
• millions of times faster for menial tasks
• to do something new

An IS success the financial industry. It has
been estimated that the clerical work of the
financial sector would require about one trillion
clerks (i.e., 200 times the earths current
population) to perform manually.
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The Impact of IS
Tends towards homeostatic equilibrium
Structure
People
Task
Technology
Culture
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Social Dynamics of IS
organization identifies need for IS
IS acquired
work process transforms organization
IS transforms work process
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Categories of Information Systems

• Command and Control Information Systems
• Embedded Weapons Systems
• Other stuff

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AMS 505 Road Map

• 2. Hardware
• physical aspects of how computers work
• 3. Networks
• how computers communicate with one another
• 4. Software
• how we give the hardware behaviour
• 5. Databases
• how we organize, store, and retrieve information
• 6. IS Development
• issues in getting information systems built
• 7. Information Security
• keeping our information secret, correct, and
  available
• 8. Applications
• selected military-relevant application areas

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Hardware
Capt David DePlanché

• gate-level logic
• building blocks of digital systems (lab)
• central processing units
• core element of a computer system
• memory
• how computer systems remember information
• input and output
• how computer systems communicate with the world
• buses
• how computers communicate internally
• system organization
• putting it together
• user interface devices
• talking to you

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Networks
Dr. Hafiz Rahman

• the ISO seven-layer model
• physical layer
• physical transmission of bits
• data-link layer
• media access, error correction
• network layer
• data routing
• transport layer
• packetization, delivery guarantees
• network interconnection
• bridging, switching, routing
• network services
• name, file, file transfer, content access
  services

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Software
Major Greg Phillips

• the hardware-software interface
• how the hardware is exposed to the
• software low-level programming (lab)
• operating systems
• hardware abstraction, essential OS services
• third-generation languages
• procedures, variables, branching, looping (lab)
• object-oriented languages
• classes and objects (lab)
• parallel and distributed systems
• programs that run on more than one CPU at a time

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Databases
Major Greg Phillips

• data modeling
• how we represent the world as data
• relational databases
• implementing data models as tables
• querying and updating tables using the Structured
  Query Language (SQL) (lab)
• other database models
• object-oriented, distributed, multi-media
  databases

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IS Development
Major Greg Phillips

• overview
• system perspective, process models
• requirements
• requirements elicitation, analysis, specification
• human factors
• usability, performance measures, prototyping
• implementation
• hardware development vs. software development,
  design and implementation, COTS vs. custom
• quality
• quality issues, verification and validation

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Information Security
Dr. Scott Knight

• classical and secret key cryptography
• historical background, modern ciphers,
• weak vs. strong ciphers
• public key cryptography
• algorithms, public key infrastructure,
  certificates
• COMPUSEC
• security policies, modes of operation
• NETSEC
• vulnerabilities, attacks, protection mechanisms
• assurance
• determining, implementing and measuring
  appropriate security levels for your project

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Applications
Various

• multimedia
• issues in storage and transmission of
• multimedia data
• geographic information systems
• digital terrain representations, issues
• battlefield management systems
• transmitting, storing and using information on
  the battlefield
• decision support systems
• technologies and techniques supporting effective
  decision making

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Evaluation

• Assignments
• one assignment on each of modules 2-7 (5 each)
• for some modules there will be a tutorial period
  to discuss the assignment
• for all modules a sample solution to the
  assignment will be provided for study purposes
• late assignments will receive no credit
• Tests and exam
• three one-period tests, covering modules 2 3, 4
  5, and 6 7 (10 each)
• one two-period final exam, covering modules 2-7
  (40)
• Labs
• labs will not require reports however material
  from labs may be included on tests and the final

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Course Web Site

• All lectures, assignments, solutions, etc. will
  be posted on the course web site at
• http//phillips.rmc.ca/ams505
• as they become available.

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Join the RMC or Queens Jugglers!

• RMC (New Gym)
• Tuesday evenings, 2130-2300 hrs
• Queens (Biosciences Atrium)
• Tuesday evenings, 1900-2100 hrs
• Saturday afternoons, 1400-1600 hrs
• http//www.ams.queensu.ca/juggling/