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 DOD Benefits from MITRE-Developed Simulation Standard By Frederick Kuhl 
The Department of Defense (DOD) created the High-Level Architecture (HLA) for modeling and simulation to ensure interoperability among its simulations. Before the development of the HLA and another, similar standard, DOD simulations were built without reference to any other simulations, making interoperability impossible or at best local and ad hoc. The HLA allows a simulation developed for one defense-related purpose to be applied to another purpose, and makes it possible to combine existing simulations and models to create new, larger simulations. For example, simulations for various military services can be interoperable. The standard is now used throughout the DOD, in NATO, and in other nations. MITRE developed and tested the first versions of the HLA prototype, and a number of government users tested it. The Defense Modeling and Simulation Office (DMSO), with considerable involvement from MITRE, managed the creation and early development of the standard. DMSO recognized that if several government agencies adhered to the HLA, it would make the results of their various programs easier to put together. Even more important, if the HLA could become an industry standard rather than just a government mandate, it would encourage commercial companies to build cost-effective, interoperable tools. To get the HLA into the widest possible use, DMSO undertook to have the HLA accepted as a standard and provided freely available versions of the HLA’s runtime infrastructure and other HLA-related software tools. DMSO undertook two parallel standardization efforts. One was through the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), an international technical professional association, and the other effort was through the Object Management Group (OMG), a consortium that produces and maintains computer industry specifications for interoperable enterprise applications. OMG’s membership is made up primarily of large computer companies. 
IEEE usually carries out its standardization efforts through standing organizations, and occasionally by chartering affinity groups that initially come together on their own. In this case, a grassroots group of people who met twice yearly to consider matters related to simulation interoperability formed a standards committee that applied for and received IEEE recognition. At least half of the members were connected to DMSO, including a number of MITRE employees who had been under contract to the DMSO for some time and who exercised a significant leadership role on the committee. With the original DOD version as a starting point, the committee began work on a specification in March 1998, producing an initial draft that went through several rounds of balloting and changes until the IEEE approved a final standard in September 2000. During this time OMG was also considering the original DOD version of the specification. In November 1998, OMG adopted the DOD version essentially unchanged as its first version of the specification. Then, in 2001, OMG received the output of the IEEE process and adopted that as a second version. The IEEE process involved many more stakeholders in the standardization process than did OMG’s. The IEEE, however, has no mechanism to ensure implementation of the standard. OMG, on the other hand, will not adopt a standard unless the people who propose it sign a letter of intent affirming that they will have a commercial implementation ready within six months of adoption. To date, most HLA-compliant modeling and simulation software has been written to the DOD standard, the first to be promulgated, though some is being written to the IEEE specification as well. As an industry standard, the HLA has reached a much wider audience than it would have as just a government standard. It thus has greater impact across a broad range of defense applications. As has become common practice in the software industry, DMSO has encouraged the adoption of its proposed standard by making freely available implementations of the key software needed to use the HLA. DMSO also wanted to encourage the development of commercial HLA software. These goals conflicted with each other: good-quality software available free from the government competed with commercial offerings. DMSO decided recently that the commercial market had developed sufficiently that government HLA users could rely on it, and DMSO withdrew its free tools. For more information, please contact Frederick Kuhl using the employee directory. |
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