From: DEICHMAN@cisco.nosc.mil (shane)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: MIL STD Buses and Networks
Date: 17 Apr 92 00:50:37 GMT
Organization: AT&T


From shane <DEICHMAN@cisco.nosc.mil>


In the last SciMil Digest, Randy Appleton (UKentucky) asked
about "MIL STD Data Buses."  This is a very timely question,
since the military has realized that it cannot afford to 
continue building information processing systems from the chip 
up -- a paradigm which resulted in monolithic, stand-alone
architectures that were contractor-specific and created a 
Tower of Babel amongst combatants due to the various protocols 
and interfaces.  One particular program seeking to alleviate 
this methodology is the Navy's "Next Generation Computer 
Resources" program in the Space and Naval Warfare Systems 
Command (SPAWAR 231).

By creating liaison groups between Navy labs and Navy 
contractors, they are working to establish requirements for a 
variety of information processing needs (e.g., there is an 
operating system working group, a backplace working group, a 
DBMS group, a couple of network groups, etc.).  These groups 
then participate with commercial standards making bodies (such 
as ISO and IEEE) and contribute their efforts to various 
standards committees (such as IEEE's Portable Operating System 
Interface for UNIX, or "POSIX").  The bottom line is that this 
approach is going to save money in the long run because the 
standards to which vendors comply will already address 
military needs to a certain extent.  The end result is that 
the military can then buy commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) 
hardware at a fraction the cost of building it themselves.  
The military gets better gear deployed more quickly, and the 
taxpayers save beaucoup dinero so the Congress (if it ever 
gets its act together) can do something about our $4x10E11 
annual deficit.

To get back to Randy's original query -- the NGCR program is 
getting ready to field it's "FutureBus+" backplane standard 
sometime later this year (c. September).  This backplane will 
ostensibly be compatible with the SAFENET II LAN standard (an 
enhancement of the FDDI fibre optic standard) as well as the 
Ethernet (I'm not sure if this would be limited to thinwire 
only or if it could handle thick and twisted pair; if this is 
important to you, let me know and I'll look it up).  However, 
I think the TAC-3 contract which was awarded last week (for 
the Navy's standardized desktop tactical workstation, the 
HP750) is only VME-compliant in the backplane.  Not too sure 
how the interface is with the AYK-14 and -15... (don't think 
that's something which you could plug and Ethernet into, 
though -- I think the airedales have removable storage media 
which the maintenance guys pull out and send to "the lab").  
In the long run, though, expect to see a much greater degree 
of interoperability amongst ALL military units -- regardless 
of unit, theatre, branch, even (eventually) nationality.  
Pretty serious stuff.  I think it was Gen. Guilio Doulet (a 
prophet of air warfare in the post-WWI era) who said something 
to the effect of: "Victory smiles upon those who anticipate 
the change in warfare and act accordingly, not those who adapt 
to it once it has occured."

-shane

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