This migration requires the replacement of custom hardware with commercial equipment and the addition of external interfaces to the image archive to provide access to raw, reformatted, and partially processed image data. A second IDEX program goal is to standardize external interfaces. Based on the systems developed at the Sunnyvale, Valley Forge, and Gaithersburg facilities, a prototype server implementation test bed and clients are being developed to support interface standardization. As the performance of commercial equipment has improved, the 1990 IDEX II architecture has evolved to the current architecture in which IDEX has migrated away from custom implementations. The wideband network was replaced with the High-Performance Parallel Interface, and hardware compression and expansion has been replaced by software.
Current access is through a mixture of custom and standard interfaces.
Support of the IAS Specification will mean that standardized interfaces are provided. The goal of the prototype facilities is to use existing technology. However, potential reuse of the prototype software by other programs is constrained by the fact that the back end of the API is specific to IDEX and therefore would not be readily useful to other systems. The IDEX II Pilot A3I modifications provided the framework for increased data access and retrieval. IDEX II Evolution is to improve management software, integrate library into DISN, support tactical image and image product ingest, implement file server for image retrieval, consolidate site functionality to reduce operations and maintenance, and to phase out custom IDEX II exploitation workstation as sites to procure softcopy-capable commercial workstations.