Architecture for Change
THE NAVY EMPHASIZES OPEN ARCHITECTURE
HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE TO
SPEED TECHNOLOGY INSERTION.
In an era of runaway technological change, decisive superiority will belong to the military able to bring new systems into use faster and more effectively than its adversaries. The Navy is making important strides toward the goal of rapid technology insertion through open architecture (OA) initiatives for hardware and software.
It is not just technology specifically designed for weapons systems that’s important. In today’s IT-based militaries, general technologies such as servers, displays and networks are just as crucial as specialized technologies in maintaining superiority.
The submarine is a prime example of the need for rapid technology insertion. Its most important defense mechanism is silence. To elude new, more effective acoustic detection systems, U.S. submarine developers are in a neverending effort to make subs quieter, thus increasing the need to quickly implement technological innovations.
This ability was in doubt in the mid-1990s, when experts discovered that the U.S. submarine fleet’s acoustic advantage over new Russian submarines was eroding. This was particularly alarming because it occurred at a time when resources available for upgrading the fleet in the traditional manner were diminishing. A creative solution had to be found that did not require an inordinate amount of time and money but could still achieve the desired result.
That solution was found in the form of the Submarine Acoustic-Rapid Commercial-Off-the-Shelf Insertion (A-RCI) program. Through new acquisition and management processes, A-RCI enabled the Navy to rapidly insert new technologies, leading to a seven-fold increase in submarine towed-array sensor performance, and a 60-fold decrease in real processing costs.
The key to success was vendor competition enabled by OA. The program tackled head-on the traditional use by systems developers of proprietary technology incompatible with other systems, which leads to high costs and a lack of ability to readily exploit new technologies. Had the Navy gone with this traditional model in its efforts to upgrade the submarine fleet, the process would have involved billions of dollars and taken a dozen or more years to complete, according to William M. Johnson, project manager for open architecture standards and planning in PEO Integrated Warfare Systems, writing in Naval Engineers Journal.
OA, by contrast, enables interoperability with multiple vendors. As new COTS products come on the market, the military needs to be able to quickly adopt those products. Servers, networks, displays and other technology must be interchangeable, and must be seen as commodities that are obtainable from whoever is willing to offer the best price, service and quality.
Navy officials say they plan to implement open architecture concepts into future ships and current and future combat systems using commercially available, widely accepted interface standards to bring commercial products from multiple vendors. Efforts include leveraging the High Performance Distributed Computing open architecture effort into the DDX total ship computing environment and into all future ship and submarine system developments.
REFRESH CYCLES
A-RCI is more mature than any other program in the Navy with regard to OA processes, and remains the model for others to follow, according to Captain Jim Shannon, program manager for OA & Human Systems Integration (IWS 7.0), in Program Executive Office for Integrated Warfare Systems. Successful OA programs in addition to A-RCI include the E-2 Hawkeye airborne battle management and command and control system, surface ship self defense system and the Improved Sonar Program.
In view of COTS products’ short life spans, the A-RCI process ensures that the latest commercially available hardware and software is used in each yearly refresh cycle. Moreover, the same software can be used on hardware with different end applications. For example, software modules used for submarines also can be used for surface ship anti-submarine warfare functions, or for shore-based acoustic intelligence analysis.
“The Navy recognizes the advantages of open architecture and has set out to implement a COTS-based open system across various surface, air and sub-surface programs to increase processing capacity, provide system growth potential, reduce cycle time for future upgrades, realize inherent space/weight reductions and enable a better return on investment,” Shannon said, while adding that there is no “one size fits all” approach to this OA process
OA can be leveraged, as is done with A-RCI, with the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program, where new technologies are developed and supplied by small businesses rather than the large, established defense contractors. This encourages innovation, flexibility, adaptability and reduced costs that result from strong competition.
“SBIR is designed to allow small businesses to exist and provide innovative solutions to various technical challenges,” Shannon continued. “Small businesses are protected by law for a period of time after a contract is awarded by limiting the data rights to the solution the government may have purchased. It’s a great program that allows innovation to flourish in the small business private sector and still protect the small business’s investment in their own creative ideas.”
The main difference between SBIR and the traditional approach, he added, is in the form of data rights. “There is no one best way how to use SBIR in a specific program. It depends on the needs of the program and the creativity of the program manager to get the best value in the most affordable manner to deliver a product the warfighter can use to his or her job better.”
In recent years, the Navy launched an initiative to implement software open architecture design principles consistently across all combat system, known as the Open Architecture Computing Environment (OACE). “A modular, open systems approach shall be employed where feasible,” stated a 2003 Department of Defense directive, which also made all programs subject to a milestone review of their modular open systems approach.
Utilizing transportable middleware, OA enables hardware and associated operating system software to be decoupled from application software, enabling rapid insertion of new software applications and the ability to easily install those applications on a diverse array of computing platforms. OACE is based on international computing system standards.
With OACE, mission-critical software applications can be ported to multiple computing environments, leading to the development of common warfighting functions and reduced costs. It is a solution to architectural obsolescence, to having to deal with applications that are tightly coupled to the underlying infrastructure, and to non-standards-based applications.
HARDWARE UPGRADES
In the case of A-RCI, “A-RCI via technology insertion changes its production baseline every two years,” said Captain Gibson Kerr, program manager for Submarine Acoustic Systems (PMS 401), within PEO Submarines. “Since the first A-RCI introduction in 1997, five different configurations have been delivered. Each ship changes its configuration every four to five years. The use of middleware facilitates the transportability of the application software across technologies, vendors, and operating systems.”
Although software OA is relatively wellknown and established, the practice of hardware OA is less so. Only now are commercial players, such as telecommunications companies, adopting hardware OA standards. It is even less common in the U.S. military, although A-RCI does incorporate hardware OA.
Like software OA, hardware OA eliminates the need for proprietary equipment, particularly servers. For example, no longer needed are “forklift upgrades,” which involve replacing entire chassis or server racks. Now, users can replace individual components such as blade servers, switch hubs, storage boards and application processors regardless of the manufacturer or supplier of those components—it is “vendor agnostic.” It is a major step forward for interoperability, in turn leading to reduced costs and easier maintenance.
A-RCI incorporates both the OA hardware and software concepts, according to Kerr.
Hardware interoperability is possible thanks to new industry standards developed by the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group (PICMG) and the VMEbus International Trade Association (VITA). There is a new series of specifications known as AdvancedTCA, based on switched fabric architectures. PICMG specifications also include the Compact-PCI form factor.
The Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition/Chief Engineer, which leads the Navy standardization effort, is working with the Defense Information Systems Agency’s standards processes. “Within PEO IWS, our Undersea Warfare Program works closely with all submarine combat system programs to take advantage of commonality where it can used across platforms,” said Shannon. “How standards are used by any specific program has to be clearly spelled out in the data rights sections of any given contract.”
Among its benefits, hardware OA helps enable the shore-based diagnosing and replacement of hardware on ships at sea. Through the Navy’s Distant Support Anchor Desk, sailors are linked to a streamlined network of service providers and technicians around the world. This, among other things, results in the need for fewer parts or field-replaceable units that need to be inventoried.
Shannon highlighted the role played by the Global Distant Support Center in providing immediate mustering capability for the Naval Sea Systems Command Logistics Center and the Southeast Regional Maintenance Center in Pascagoula, Miss. after Hurricane Katrina. “The Navy is always trying to improve its processes, and as we open more systems lending to more providers having access to compete where competition has not previously existed, we will get even better than we are today, and we are pretty good.”
The Navy is not yet widely using onboard prognostics and the supporting built-in test capability, such as would be the case in a “sense and respond logistics” scenario, said Shannon, but that is the direction in which the Navy is headed. The scenario refers to a network-centric concept that enables joint effects-based operations and provides adaptive, precise and real-time support without outside intervention.
MONOLITHIC APPROACH?
While OA enables rapid insertion of new software and hardware, institutionalbarriers can still slow insertion of the OA management approach throughout the military. Leveraging competition by involving numerous smaller companies in the procurement process faces significant obstacles, small-business executives contend.
Nicholas Karangelen, president of Trident Systems and a board member of the Small Business Technology Coalition, sees resistance to change coming mostly from large defense contractors.
“These program offices and prime contractors have a strong investment in the existing monolithic approach (one large prime contractor who is responsible for the program),” Karangelen told Congress recently. “The prime contractors have wellestablished business positions and defend their turf by erecting whatever barriers to entry they can for their competition. While the program offices have been open to discussing the merits of the OA approach and quick to identify how they are currently implementing OA elements into their programs, they also are not often successful forcing significant change on their prime contractors who largely determine the fate of the program.”
With the complexity of Navy combat systems increasing while Navy program offices face staffing cuts, large prime contractors in many cases have assumed the responsibility of managing large complex systems, resulting in the development of contractor “dynasties” over the years. “These circumstances have created an environment which is not likely to embrace the Open Architecture initiative,” Karangelen said.
“It appears very unlikely that the existing prime contractors will establish truly open architectures for the Navy’s next generation of combat systems (enabling continuous and open competition for system and subsystem upgrades) and equally unlikely that the Navy’s program managers will overturn those entrenched prime contractors in the near term,” he contended.
Nevertheless, if the cultural and institutional obstacles to OA can be overcome, the results will be promising. The lack of interoperability of basic hardware and software components drives up costs and the time required to upgrade. It is has been estimated that maintaining a system cost three times as much as original procuring it. Thanks to OA, uniform standards, commoditization of components, and procurement programs that capitalize on competition, the task of developing and upgrading systems is much more streamlined and simple, and costs are drastically reduced. ♦
