The process should be in such a way that it aids in the government's performance of its business. TPWG needs to continue to ask if we are developing a process which has enough flexibility to meet the government's needs and it should avoid a process that includes a set of non value adding procedures. ISAT studies are useful for identifying potential defense research challenges which in turn may become ARPA research investment programs. Cliff Weinstein indicated that the ISAT working group started out focused on information warfare. The study was sponsored by Teresa Lunt, ARPA Program Manager, and is chaired by Peter Blankenship from Lincoln Laboratory.
Enterprises are dependent on computing, information, storage and communication systems.
The goal is to understand what concepts, principles, guidelines and options are available to preserve the functions of national enterprises in spite of problems attributable to natural disasters, bad luck or even a clever enemy. Our national enterprises concerned with transportation, banking, manufacturing, air traffic control, energy distribution, communications, training, mobilization, etc., need to be robust. A principle that has already come out of the ISAT study is that to meet the goal for enterprise systems to continue to produce despite adversities, we should not be dependent on the integrity of any particular subsystem. The enterprise needs to be designed based on expectations of subsystem performance, rather than guaranteed subsystem performance. There is a need to modularize and encapsulate the subsystem functions so as to keep critical enterprise functions running in spite of adversities.