buglerbilly
29-06-10, 04:28 AM
By JULIAN HALE
Published: 28 Jun 2010 13:39
BRUSSELS - The Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC), which comprises some 90 defense companies, has carried out a third and final test of a set of standards intended to make complex data exchange easier and quicker.
The demonstration, called a "lab interoperability framework," was designed to show how different players could share an operational picture of an area. The NCOIC pointed to the recent Haiti operation or the Gulf of Mexico oil spill as examples where different networks or countries could communicate using these standards.
However, the consortium stressed that "where it brings different agencies together, it will still need government approval to move that data," and the customers would have to provide the applications.
Customers could be NATO, the European Union, civilians, governments or industry. The standards will be published free of charge for public use later this year after the NCOIC gives final approval. The NCOIC says that using its lab interoperability framework can save companies approximately $200,000 per event in labor costs, shorten execution timelines by 66 percent and reduce the risk of event failure.
An event is where two parties connect to share data using the standards.
NATO has a parallel project called "Distributed Network Battlefields," which is seeking to bring together different government labs. A NATO official indicated that this project could at some point connect with the NCOIC project.
"The important thing is to move away from individual national capabilities that are not interoperable," he said. "Plug and play functions are key."
"NCOIC's process can help NATO countries' military and non-military operations to integrate their infrastructures more rapidly, easily and with less risk so that they can assess and implement their individual interoperability road maps with greater confidence," the NCOIC said in an e-mailed statement.
"Also, NCOIC's technologies and procedures can help various companies who supply NATO, for all the same reasons, including protection of their intellectual property. And IP protection has been a real barrier in the past."
Published: 28 Jun 2010 13:39
BRUSSELS - The Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC), which comprises some 90 defense companies, has carried out a third and final test of a set of standards intended to make complex data exchange easier and quicker.
The demonstration, called a "lab interoperability framework," was designed to show how different players could share an operational picture of an area. The NCOIC pointed to the recent Haiti operation or the Gulf of Mexico oil spill as examples where different networks or countries could communicate using these standards.
However, the consortium stressed that "where it brings different agencies together, it will still need government approval to move that data," and the customers would have to provide the applications.
Customers could be NATO, the European Union, civilians, governments or industry. The standards will be published free of charge for public use later this year after the NCOIC gives final approval. The NCOIC says that using its lab interoperability framework can save companies approximately $200,000 per event in labor costs, shorten execution timelines by 66 percent and reduce the risk of event failure.
An event is where two parties connect to share data using the standards.
NATO has a parallel project called "Distributed Network Battlefields," which is seeking to bring together different government labs. A NATO official indicated that this project could at some point connect with the NCOIC project.
"The important thing is to move away from individual national capabilities that are not interoperable," he said. "Plug and play functions are key."
"NCOIC's process can help NATO countries' military and non-military operations to integrate their infrastructures more rapidly, easily and with less risk so that they can assess and implement their individual interoperability road maps with greater confidence," the NCOIC said in an e-mailed statement.
"Also, NCOIC's technologies and procedures can help various companies who supply NATO, for all the same reasons, including protection of their intellectual property. And IP protection has been a real barrier in the past."