 |
 |
 |
 |
| |
|||||
|
|
 |
 Using COTS Means Business Not as Usual for the Government By Judy Clapp 
There is no longer a question of whether or not the U.S. government will use commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) products. It already uses them to a very significant extent for its business applications. The Department of Defense (DOD) even uses them in the development of its so-called “weapon systems,” which have now shifted to “information-centric” systems using Information Technology (IT). The advantages of COTS are compelling so long as the risks are understood and managed. However, the government’s continued success with the use of COTS products will require a change in the way it does business in order to keep in step with changes in commercial business practice. The DOD needs to attract new non-defense companies to do business with it while at the same time taking greater advantage of products that become available in the commercial marketplace. Yet despite its growing dependence upon IT and the convergence of its IT requirements with those of the commercial IT consumer community, the DOD may never constitute more than 5 to 10 percent of the market for many commercial products. Market size alone will not always give DOD influence over commercial products and practices. One key to achieving greater benefits from the use of COTS products is greater collaboration within the government and between the government and industry. Both groups benefit from these relationships: the government wants to acquire capabilities faster and cheaper and industry wants to ensure a profit. Government-industry collaborations are already happening MITRE recently surveyed the practices being used for acquiring for the government systems that contain COTS. That survey showed examples of successful government-industry collaborations where the government was able to influence the vendors to modify their COTS products to meet government requirements, and to introduce the modifications into commercially available releases of the COTS products. The government strategy, in general, has been to share the cost of the modifications with the vendors, to provide expertise when needed, and to give the COTS developer the data rights (i.e., ownership) to the extensions and hence the future profits. The government has also required that the modifications be put into the commercial version of the COTS product before it goes into the fielded government system. Another strategy that has helped the government to influence the development of COTS products has been to form a group representing many government organizations. This group can gain greater leverage than individual organizations by speaking to vendors in one voice as a single customer when requesting changes and by assuring vendors that there is a significant ready-made market for the changed product. Standards organizations are collaborators too Organizations such as the International Standards Organization (ISO), the Electronics Industries Alliance (EIA), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) develop and refine standards that have a strong influence over the characteristics of COTS products. Standards can define the functional capabilities a COTS product must provide and the interfaces that allow COTS products to interact and be integrated with other COTS products and with their hardware environment and platform. Government membership in standards organizations provides an opportunity for government and industry to better understand the other’s interests and to negotiate for mutual benefit. This kind of collaboration can extend to other organizations such as the Open GIS Consortium (www.opengis.org), which brings industry, government, and academia together to develop technology standards and business processes to support the use of geo-referenced data and services. The business of components and integration Technology innovations are driving the need for new business models. Previously, a prime contractor provided an entire custom-developed system. Now, COTS vendors provide products that are components of a system rather than the entire system. This has led to the availability of competing products and services from smaller companies and to a role for system integrators. The DOD, in particular, needs to attract these companies into partnerships with the government. To achieve this, the DOD and industry together must determine how to promote the building of systems from replaceable parts and pieces offered by various suppliers while protecting each company’s intellectual investments and making participation worthwhile for them. Trusted third parties may be needed to validate the capabilities of components and services and to perform the integration. To help determine how to do business in a component-based world, the Electronic Systems Center of the Air Force is sponsoring a collaborative forum in which government agencies and industry will work together to identify new and effective ways of doing business. The payoff envisioned will not only bring added value to the DOD and help guide the acquisition of the next-generation Command and Control capability, but will also bring new and profitable opportunities to industry. Buying services, not products Application Service Providers (ASPs) constitute a rapidly growing industry for commonly used COTS business applications that range from email to large, expensive financial and enterprise management applications. Users pay for access to the applications without having to commit funds to licensing, hosting, and supporting their operation. An ASP provides and maintains the software on a server. Potential advantages to users of an ASP are the availability of its expertise about the application packages and the marketplace, economies of scale due to the number of users the ASP can support, and high availability and rapid response from the ASP’s support services. All this reduces the number of IT staff that the user requires. Using an ASP that charges a fixed monthly rate makes it easier to budget for IT costs. Lack of security is a potential downside, because the application servers can reside with the ASP and, therefore, a user’s transactions might be captured by others. The government needs to determine how best to take advantage of ASPs and whether other options, such as direct licensing, will continue to be viable. Choosing to use an ASP may be advantageous in such domains as office and business applications or logistics, where there is a ready market for applications involving single products or integrated sets. For mission-critical applications, however, or unique ones in which multiple COTS packages must be integrated or extensively tailored, it is harder to envision the use of ASPs. Nevertheless, they are likely to influence how future COTS products will be offered and obtained. COTS products at no cost The open source movement has provided software products that are basically free. They are developed and enhanced by volunteers, who make the source code readily available on the Internet for download at no cost. This can give the products many attractive features not found in a COTS product and a large variety of platforms on which they can run. Linux and Apache are notable examples that have a wide user base and are taking over a large share of the marketplace. They are also remarkably stable. Not everyone wants to take on responsibility for maintaining their own version of an open source product. So commercial vendors exist who provide enhancements and support services for open source products, at a price. Some vendors embed open source components in their COTS products, such as email services, and others modify their products to interoperate with such open source products as Linux. One obvious advantage of open source is that the user who has access to the source code can analyze it for security and safety features in critical applications and can make modifications and enhancements where needed. Control over the source code makes it easier to decide whether to accept an upgrade that may have been developed elsewhere. For popular open source components, the number of people who are familiar with the code and who use it increases the probability that errors will be uncovered and fixes made quickly and shared. It may also mean that their vulnerabilities are known to unfriendly parties such as hackers and military enemies. Open source products or their commercial counterparts are beginning to appear in government systems. The government should evaluate them for their features and maturity when it evaluates COTS components. Logistics support for COTS products using commercial practices The traditional ways that logistics support has been provided for military systems is due for change. It is no longer necessary to stock up life-time spares for hardware. Instead, the military can put in place supply chains that utilize such commercial practices as e-commerce and “just-in-time” resupply. For COTS equipment, unlike custom-designed equipment, it is not necessary or feasible for the government to receive detailed level-three drawings. For software, the data rights will belong to the commercial developers of COTS packages. The commercial vendors of hardware and software will be the ones to debug their products and to modify them. Systems that have a COTS-based open architecture will allow COTS components to be replaced with products having the latest technology or providing more economical alternatives. By conducting frequent market research, the government can learn what is available and maintain relationships with vendors throughout the life of a system. Conclusions The examples here reflect the shifts in relationships and business practices that are already occurring within the government, within industry, and between the government and industry. This is an area of high leverage in achieving efficient, economical acquisition and modification of COTS-based systems. A continued effort to define and refine these relationships and business practices will promote the mutual benefit of government and industry. For more information, please contact Judy Clapp using the employee directory. |
Solutions That Make a Difference.® |
|
|