Architectures
- Supporting Capability Evolution Using a Service Oriented Architecture Approach in a Military Command and Control Information System
- Agile Properties of Service Oriented Architectures for Network Enabled Capability
- Motivations for Change within an Enduring Architecture
- Architecting for Capability
- An Ontology for Evaluation of Network Enabled Capability Architectures
Supporting Capability Evolution Using a Service Oriented Architecture Approach in a Military Command and Control Information System
Dr Stewart Radcliffe MIET, Luke Trotman, Harry Duncan CEng MIET
The Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) enabled Command and Control Information System (C2IS) supplied by Thales for military operational-level headquarters provides an opportunity for capability evolution. An SOA approach allows flexible introduction of capability through enabling integration and interoperability, taking advantage of commercial-off-the- shelf (COTS) technology and standards. This paper provides an overview of work being conducted by Thales in the development of an SOA approach. It considers architecture modelling, SOA Governance and a summary of a multinational demonstration activity used to implement prototype services. It is clear that a managed SOA approach could be used to support capability evolution.
Download the full paper as a pdf file here
Agile Properties of Service Oriented Architectures for Network Enabled Capability
Lu Liu, Duncan Russell, Jie Xu, John K Davies and Ken Irvin
Network Enabled Capability (NEC) is the U.K. Ministry of Defence’s response to the quickly changing conflict environment in which its forces must operate. In NEC, assets need to be integrated in context, to assist in human activity and provide dependable inter-operation. Different from traditional system engineering for the development of hardware equipments or software engineering for the development of software systems, NEC raises new challenges not only for service development on Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), but also for dynamic discovery and integration of services in order to provide dependable and sustainable military capability. In this paper we introduce and discuss our research work in the NECTISE (NEC Through Innovative Systems Engineering) project with a focus on the use of agile methodologies to adapt to changes occurring in the process of service development, service discovery and service integration. We demonstrate through examples how to enable agile SOA for NEC.
Download the full paper as a pdf file here
Motivations for Change within an Enduring Architecture
David Webster, Duncan Russell, Nik Looker and Jie Xu
Network Enabled Capability (NEC) has presented the systems research community with a number of research problems, both technical and social. Our research into the understanding of systems architecture has driven a more detailed understanding of problems associated with the realization of the architectural aspects of NEC. In this paper, we pay particular attention to evolving architectures in an NEC context, and the properties defined by an enduring architecture. This paper examines the application of a staged life-cycle to the properties identified by earlier work as critical for an enduring architecture. In addition, we use this life-cycle to taxonomize our understanding of the motivations for change in systems. We finally, look at a case study of free and open-source development as an example of a distributed development community for networked systems that can help us understand properties of and problems associated with the development and support of NEC. From this research work we have been able to provide a foundation that will enhance the problem structuring of current and future NEC research regarding the direction of SOA based enduring architectures and system maintainability.
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Architecting for Capability
Malcolm Touchin, Charles Dickerson
Architecting provides the crucial link between what a customer thinks he wants in a system and what the solution to be implemented will actually look like. The essential product of the process, the architecture, has long been regarded as having three principal ingredients - Purpose, Structure, and Beauty - and this is just as valid for complex system architectures as it was when the Romans were building their towns and cities. The paper considers the nature and essential structure of Military Capability, the distinction between the assembling of available military assets to conduct a specific operation and the longer-term business of planning for future needs, and, given the difficulty of articulating requirements for capability, the importance of a model-based approach to eliciting and capturing the real capability needs. The paper concludes with a comparison of three current approaches to capability architecting, and offers a definition of the term Architecting for Capability.
The contents of the paper are based to a large extent on the outcomes of workshop held in July at the SEIC when the topic was debated by a number of representatives of MoD, industry and academia. From this, the current position on Architecting for Capability has been captured as the basis for further, wider debate on the subject.
Download the full paper as a pdf file here
An Ontology for Evaluation of Network Enabled Capability Architectures
David Webster, Nik Looker, Duncan Russell, Lu Liu and Jie Xu
Presented by Colin C. Venters
The UK Ministry of Defence’s Network Enabled Capability and USA Department of Defence’s Network-Centric Warfare programmes, are aimed at improving military effectiveness through the networking of existing and new military assets. Research is being carried out into architectures needed to support Network Enabled Capability – including emerging software architectures such as Service Oriented Architectures. This paper presents a framework for the evaluation of architectures that will enable the comparison of different architectures and their use to be made. The framework identifies the elements needed to perform such an evaluation, how those elements are used and how they should be obtained or developed. Further work will develop such evaluations and use Case Studies to show their value.
