Testing in a Joint Environment Roadmap - U.S. Army Operational ...

For Official Use Only
Testing in a Joint Environment Roadmap
fundamental to enable interoperability among all components of the joint mission infrastructure,
it will either be owned by the Government or centrally licensed, so that it can be provided "free
of charge" to organizations interfacing to the joint mission infrastructure.
B.2.3.3 BASIC OBJECT MODELS
Standard data definitions and defined interfaces are critical to streamline integration of the
joint mission infrastructure. Prescribing the interface, data, and functionality, an object model
enables semantic interoperability among the various capabilities in the joint mission
infrastructure by proving a standard "language" that all systems use to communicate. This
capability is essential to provide semantic understanding between operations of diverse systems.
Classic examples of object models include the entities in the exercise (airplane, tank, ship, threat
systems, terrain features, etc.) as well as supporting systems, such as instrumentation systems
(radar, Global Positioning System, telemetry, etc.). Object models encode all the information
exchanged between systems. To assist developers in designing their interface to the joint
mission infrastructure, it is critical to provide "building block" object models that are segmented
and standardized across communities of interest. Therefore, rather than having to build their
interfaces either from scratch or by trying to re-engineer object definitions from past events for
different purposes, developers will have a variety of standard interface definitions that they
leverage to compose the definition of their larger system. Examples of Basic Object Models
include ubiquitous data definitions (e.g., time and position), as well as generic definitions (e.g.,
platform), which every developer could utilize. Basic Object Models also include standard
software algorithms, such as coordinate translations and conversion routes. Incorporating
standard software algorithms with Basic Object Models is critical to minimize "translation error"
and other impacts from the joint mission infrastructure that could obscure true effects or
otherwise hinder an evaluator in tracing the root cause of problems back to a particular system.
B.2.3.4 TOOLS AND UTILITIES
The Tools and Utilities provide functionality that allows the joint mission infrastructure to
serve as a useful test environment and to operate efficiently and cleanly. The tools consist of a
suite of software applications used to plan, prepare, configure, operate, monitor, and analyze the
results of a joint test event involving the joint mission infrastructure. Planning tools will make it
easy to schedule incorporation into a pre-planned event in the joint mission infrastructure,
including determining which DoD capabilities are needed based upon the test objectives and
defining the scenario derived from the joint mission environment. In addition, these planning
tools will help test engineers map test objectives and needed test resources by drilling down from
the operational architecture of the joint mission environments. One significant tool essential to
transform testing in a joint environment is the scheduling tool for events and supporting assets,
including all elements of the joint mission infrastructure. Scheduling of the assets in the joint
mission infrastructure, especially live assets participating in exercises, will be a complex
B-6
For Official Use Only
Appendix B