The advent and maturation of
web service standards and technologies, and the use of Service Oriented
Architecture (SOA), are changing the way the Defense Department
approaches IT capabilities and services. Web services are an
open
standards-based way of creating, offering, securing, and consuming IT services. Part of the
cultural change is how we approach the delivery of IT. Today,
the
DoD is still a systems- and applications-based environment, implying
that we operate in fairly closed communities of interest operating
largely with client-server practices. Think about this:
Google
and Amazon have little idea who will use their services from where and
for how long. That means an entirely different approach to
service delivery, one the DoD must adopt.
The SOA approach has been adopted to accelerate the Defense
Department’s concept of net-centric operations and warfare by
ensuring that our warfighters access the right information, from
trusted and accurate sources, when and where it is needed. In
May
2007, the DOD Chief Information Officer (CIO) published the DOD
Net-Centric Services Strategy (NCSS) that reflects the DoD’s
recognition that this service oriented approach can result in an
explosion of capabilities for warfighters and decision makers to
increase operational effectiveness.
SOA will be the “behind-the-glass” magic
that will
improve information exchange across the Department of
Defense. It
will eliminate hard wired interfaces among systems and applications by
creating an environment in which information can be discovered and
shared more easily and more quickly. SOA allows
information
providers offer to perform functions for information
consumers
without the need to know in advance who may choose to consume the
information or why they choose to consume. The interaction of the
information provider and consumer occurs through a service interface
described by a service agreement between the two, often referred to as
machine-to-machine. This service “agreement” can
define
use, performance guarantees, and information assurance requirements
that can apply to the information provider, consumer, or
both.
In the private sector, SOA has rapidly expanded beyond the IT arena
where initial growth was sparked by companies such as Microsoft, IBM,
Oracle, Sun, and BEA. In the consumer arena, companies such as Google
and Amazon are creating whole new markets, enabling new businesses and exciting
new consumer services through their adoption of SOA. For enterprises,
Gartner forecasts a 22.1% compound annual growth rate for SOA services
through 2011 as companies adopt services and SOA for use within their
organizations. In addition, Gartner predicts that the worldwide market
for software tools to support providing and consuming services will
grow from $41 billion to $142 billion from 2006 through 2011
As with anything new, though, challenges exist. To address
some,
DISA hosts the Defense Department’s Enterprise-Wide System
Engineering (EWSE) capability which is a collaborative effort to
establish the policies and guidance needed to maintain a common
foundation for this new collaborative and sharing environment. Through
EWSE, DISA has driven adoption of the initial web service standards and
developed the implementation guidance necessary to maintain security
and improve interoperability as these standards and technologies are incorporated into our daily business.
DISA continues to work with industry and across the Department to
mature and adopt necessary standards.
DISA is providing foundational services for SOA through the Net-Centric
Enterprise Services (NCES) program. These are designed to provide the
Department with the core services that enable sharing and collaboration
on a scale never envisioned. The critical component is the
SOA
Framework, or SOAF. While DISA just awarded a contract for
the
SOAF, some SOAF elements have been available to our customers through
pilots and early user tests for several years.
The Net-Enabled Command Capability (NECC) program has adopted a SOA
approach to greatly enhance the decision superiority capabilities of
Combatant Commands and joint task forces. The SOA approach
also
enables the net-centric transformation of the Department’s
existing Global Command and Control System (GCCS) Family of Systems
(FOS) and the Global Combat Support System (GCSS). In
addition,
as described above, the SOA is a foundation of our Federated
Development and Certification Environment (FDCE).
We’ve made progress in establishing SOA as a way of doing
business and gaining consensus on shared standards and specifications
which will allow web services to be available across the Defense
enterprise. Successes include the Maritime Domain Awareness
(MDA)
capability that uses NCES services to enable discovery and sharing of
information on global commercial shipping among the Navy, Coast Guard,
and Department of Transportation. Programs like NECC and
Global
Electromagnetic Spectrum Information System (GEMSIS) will also take
advantage of these core services and standards to allow services and
information to be more readily discovered and shared among those who
have information and those needing it.
While its meaning is often lost in technical jargon, the SOA is really
about an approach to business processes enabled by new and evolving
technologies and standards. It speeds information
sharing.
The Defense Department is adopting the SOA to facilitate rapid, sure
information sharing so that the warfighter has the right information at
the right time wherever he or she is around the world.
