Interoperability Architecture for Tool Integration across Multiple Domains

Increasingly, national and international organizations are relying on a standards-based simulation infrastructure to interconnect simulation capabilities, to increase simulation interoperability and control modeling and simulation costs. Missile Defense Agency programs are no exception, and require the communication of a large volume and broad spectrum of data for mission scenarios. Building a secure, yet flexible Multi-Level Security (MLS) simulation environment presents new & unique challenges. Many obstacles must still be overcome before a truly interoperable simulation environment that operates across political boundaries and security domains can be realized. Information sharing across complex organizational boundaries requires not only provision for integration without violating military security, but also mechanisms to ensure interoperability between different simulation federations. Trident Systems proposes to develop the Simulation Gateway (SG), a HLA interoperability tool and MLS simulation capability based on Trident's InterchangeSE and Collaboration Gateway (CG). InterchangeSE provides a common repository of integrated tools sets, enabling traceability and enforcing data consistency across the tool sets. CG, which utilizes the NSA-certified ISSE Guard, enables cross-domain instant messaging. Collectively, the SG architecture builds upon these tools to facilitate interoperability among a large number of entities and enables HLA data to be shared between multiple security domains while enforcing client authentication.