Policies, Procedures, Prototyping, and Pilot Implementation P4I for Coalition Command, Control, Comm

1
Policies, Procedures, Prototyping, and Pilot
Implementation (P4I) for Coalition Command,
Control, Communications, Computers and
Intelligence (C4I)and SustainmentAn Initiative
of the Object Management Group (OMG)

• 27 April 2000

2
Visions

• C4I Vision
• World-wide Environment for the development and
  validation of APIs, technical policies,
  technical procedures leading to universal
  coalition C4I interoperability
• Standardized APIs (Common Defense Objects
  Components)
• Methods of handling semantic differences
• World-wide Environment for the development and
  validation of APIs, technical policies,
  technical procedures leading to universal
  coalition sustainment operations interoperability
• Emphasis on crisis and disaster management
  operations (aka, Military Operations Other Than
  War -- MOOTW)
• P4I Vision
• Initiative to define an international virtual C4I
  environment to examine coalition interoperability
  issues
• Doctrine studies and analysis
• Technical policy development and evaluation
• Procedure definition and evaluation
• Prototyping
• Pilot Implementations and demonstrations

3
P4I Concept

• Partnership of industry, governments, and
  academia
• Loosely coupled network of servers and
  workstations
• World-wide scope communicating over the internet
  or internet-like network(s)
• CORBA based, but not excluding other distributed
  computing technologies
• Reflective of the operational environments
• Software architecture based on the C4I Reference
  Architecture being developed within the OMG C4I
  DSIG Roadmap Document
• Environment for developing, prototyping, testing,
  and demonstrating policies, procedures, and
  products
• Pilot Implementations can be regarded as methods
  of Beta testing
• Environment for examining doctrinal issues
  related to Information Technology (IT) in the C4I
  and Sustainment environments

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Goals of the P4I Environment

• Provide well-defined, standardized interfaces
  (a.k.a., Common Defence Objects) among national
  C4I systems that support military assets in
  crisis and disaster management operations.
• Provide well-defined, standardized interfaces
  among national C4I systems that minimize semantic
  and cultural differences.
• Serve as a migration path to true
  interoperability of national C4I systems that are
  used in international crisis and disaster
  management operations.
• Provide a world-wide environment for development
  and validation of APIs, technical policies, and
  technical procedures.
• End products of the P4I environment will be
  generally available commercial software products,
  technical policies, procedure, and interface
  specifications that reinforce interoperability in
  support of international Crisis and Disaster
  Management when using military assets.

A international, independent environment for the
evaluation of policies, procedures, prototypes,
and pilot implementations intended to support
Crisis and Disaster Management situations where
multi-national military assets are employed.
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Some P4I Objectives

• Studies of the effects of new APIs and
  capabilities on doctrine, policies, and
  procedures within the C4I environment.
• Development and demonstration of prototypes
  employing evolving APIs that support C4I
  operations from multiple nations and minimize
  semantic and cultural differences among them.
• Demonstration and testing of applications
  intended to be used in support of military assets
  in crisis and disaster management operations and
  minimize semantic and cultural differences among
  nations that may acquire and deploy the
  applications.
• Development of specifications to be submitted to
  the OMG for standardization.
• Cooperation among military services and between
  military services, government agencies, and
  non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the
  management of crisis and disaster operations.
• Cooperation among vendors of commercial products
  in the development of specifications for
  standardized APIs for military services and
  non-military organizations in the management of
  crisis and disaster management operations.
• Transfer of technology from academia,
  governments, and other research organizations to
  commercial vendors.
• Growth of small and middle-sized enterprises
  (SMEs) engaged in the development and vending of
  software products for use in both commercial and
  C4I settings, particularly in countries with
  underdeveloped software industries.
• Outsourcing of C4I requirements to the software
  vendor community, through the OMG C4I DSIG, and
  the meeting of those requirements in the form
  standardized APIs that are developed and
  specified in the P4I Environment and standardized
  by the OMG.

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Generally Applicable Benefits

• P4I approach is low cost and low risk
• Long-term potential for high payoff in terms of
• Standardized specifications for APIs satisfying
  requirements of the C4I and Sustainment
  communities that can also be implemented for
  civilian purposes
• Reuse results in lower life-cycle costs
• Standardized APIS introduce efficiencies in
  development and integration
• Standards based products that will interoperate
  in an Internet-like environment that are
  available as shrink-wrapped products with
  civilian use as well as use within the C4I and
  Sustainment communities
• Fosters competition based on quality of service
  (QoS) provided by products
• Encourages niche market development by smaller
  companies
• Semantic and cultural differences can be
  minimized
• Reduced potential for misunderstanding
• Common technical policies
• Common procedures

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Types of Participants

• C4I and Sustainment Community Members
• The End-Users
• Participation at the national level
• Corporate Entities
• ORB Vendors
• Application Vendors
• Application Integrators
• Consultants
• Academia (and research organizations)
• Colleges and Universities
• Think Tanks

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C4I and Sustainment Community Members

• Responsibilities
• Strategic (Board of Trustees) and operational
  (Project Review Board) guidance
• P4I Secretariat oversight
• Facilities, hardware, operating systems,
  communications infrastructure, etc.
• Requirements and concepts
• Benefits
• Environment for development and testing of
  coalition-oriented policies and procedures
• Shared projects between corporate entities in
  multiple countries (required), resulting in
  products built to common definitions of
  interfaces and functionality
• Standards based COTS products that are
• Responsive to C4I and sustainment community
  requirements while maintaining viability in the
  commercial marketplace
• Better quality
• Less expensive
• More readily available
• Interoperable
• Reusable

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Corporate Entities -- ORB Vendors

• ORB Vendors
• Responsibilities
• Provide retail and beta versions of ORBs and
  services
• Benefits
• Exercising of products in an extremely demanding
  environment
• Heterogeneous (hardware, software, culture,
  natural language, etc.)
• Time critical
• Multi-vendor
• Lessons learned in the performance of the various
  projects will enable ORB vendors to improve their
  product offerings with respect to
• Quality of Service
• Interoperability
• Composeability
• Federateability

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Corporate Entities -- Application Vendors,
Application Integrators, Consultants

• Enterprises that produce CORBA-based application
  products will be able to demonstrate and/or test
  prototypes and conduct pilot implementation
  testing (beta-test) of products
• Smaller companies may be able to develop
  prototypes on site
• All will be encouraged to leave applications in
  the P4I Environment
• Prototypes
• Pilot Implementations
• Resulting Products
• Opportunity to develop tools, components, and
  applications that will be well exercised and,
  except in very rare cases, be easily translated
  in products for the civilian marketplace as well.
• Partner with organizations in other countries on
  all projects
• Large vendors will be encouraged to partner with
  economically disadvantaged companies, academia,
  and research organizations wherever possible
• Partnership may involve some cost sharing
• Opportunity to take advantage of the break
  through ideas that are often found in small
  companies and academia that often do not have the
  resources to support their development

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Academia and Research Organizations

• Responsibilities
• Academic organizations will provide RD expertise
  and labor
• Think tanks are much like academic
  organizations
• Benefits
• Environment for students to gain experience in a
  real-world setting
• Environment for testing and integrating new ideas
• Opportunities for joint research programs with
  other like institutions
• Effective technology transfer mechanism

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Operational Concept

• Projects submitted to the Project Review Board
  (PRB)
• Problem statement
• Approach
• Expected results
• Organizations participating
• Estimated cost
• Schedule
• P4I Environment resources required
• PRB recommends acceptance, deferment, rejection,
  or conditional acceptance
• Director for Liaison Relations identifies/encourag
  es potential partnerships across national
  boundaries
• Twice annual reviews of each project

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Sample Projects

• Computer Supported Cooperative Work Tools and
  Components to enable collaboration at
• Same time/same place group decision support,
  meeting facilitation
• Same time/different places audio/video
  conferencing, shared whiteboards, shared
  applications
• Different times/same place team rooms, shared
  memory, information sharing, coordination tools
• Different times/different places e-mail,
  discussion/bulletin boards, group authoring,
  workflow
• Components for Common Visualization of the
  Operational Space (CVOS)
• Recommend doctrine, policies, procedures, and
  technical solutions to the problem of attaining a
  CVOS capability
• Investigate issues relating to differences in
  operational environments due to cultural,
  language, etc. differences
• Common Information Assurance Tools and Components
• Coalition C4I security policy and procedure must
  reflect the concept of multiple security
  accreditation domains, each domain having its own
  internal policies and procedures
• Develop policies, procedures, and information
  technical solutions needed to support information
  assurance in the constantly evolving coalition
  environment

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P4I Environment Financial Approach

• Governments pay flat fee per year to subscribe
• Estimated to be 250K to 750K US per year
• Projects that do not require financial assistance
  pay fee based on validated cost estimate
• Estimated to be 5 of estimated project cost
• Financial Assistance Fund
• Government fees project fees - operating
  expenses
• Two tier
• Nationally earmarked one year
• General
• Based upon economic analyses being performed by
  MITRE Economic Decision Analysis Center (EDAC)

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Initial P4I Environment Management Structure
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P4I Environment Management Structure
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OMG Management Structure including the P4I
Environment Secretariat
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Current Status of the Feasibility Study

• 5 nations participating to date
• Canada Finland Norway United
  Kingdom United States
• Discussions scheduled with Defence Evaluation and
  Research Agency (DERA) and European Commission
• Three documents
• Why OMG? an executive level introduction to the
  OMG
• Excellent draft has been published
• Requires slight modification to emphasize crisis
  and disaster management
• Introductory Handbook to the Object Management
  Group (OMG) a handbook for the defense
  practitioner describing how to make use of the
  OMG process
• Excellent draft has been published OMG
  encouraged to use as an introductory brochure
• Requires tailoring for the defense community
• P4I Feasibility Final Report
• Annotated outline has been published
• Economic analysis has begun
• Remaining meetings
• Cobham, Surrey, UK 2-4 May
• Oslo, Norway 12 14 June
• TBD mid to
  late July
• Burlingame, CA 12 14 September