Transforming Tactical Messaging: Exploiting Web Information Standards for Interoperability
February 2003
R.W. Miller, The MITRE Corporation
M.A. Malloy, The MITRE Corporation
E.V. Masek, The MITRE Corporation
ABSTRACT
The challenge of interoperability—the ability of systems
to exchange services in ways that enable them to work effectively together—has increased with the number of heterogeneous deployed automated
systems. Message Text Formats (MTFs) are a primary means for satisfying
information exchange requirements (IERs) and for supporting system interoperability.
In defense contexts, MTFs such as MIL STD 6040 govern a significant
portion of all exchanged structured text information and support the
full spectrum of military operations. The Air Force has recognized the
need to evolve prevailing information management processes to achieve
cost savings, to improve interoperability and to meet unprecedented
increases in operational tempo. We discuss how the Air Force, with assistance
from MITRE, is transforming and exploiting tactical messaging standard
management processes through XML technologies to achieve a DoD information
environment. Web services and electronic business XML (ebXML) architecture
principles provide a web-based context for this vision. The model includes
information sharing between national and coalition systems and operational
facilities via agreed information packages called XML-MTF's, a
web-enabled variant of MIL STD 6040. Doctrinal and operational business
rules captured from various sources also will be represented via XML
technologies. This future vision has been briefed and agreed in both
joint and coalition forums. We also enumerate various XML-based efforts
that have been initiated by AFC2ISRC/SCG at Langley AFB, with some products
already in place, and parallel efforts in NATO. Early results promise
rapid, low-cost technological improvements to message-based interoperability.
These initiatives will provide the products and services needed to achieve
a DoD information environment based on the ebXML and web services paradigms,
using XML technologies to evolve messaging. The processes we describe
will lay the foundation for maintaining Information Superiority based
on next generation smart-pull, information-on-demand technologies.
Additional Search Keywords
Message Text Format, USMTF, XML, Web Services, Information Exchange Requirements, smart-pull, Web enabling, Information Superiority
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