THE NETWORK ARCHITECTURE SIMULATION SYSTEM (NASS)-AN ADVANCED APPROACH TO MODELING DISTRIBUTED ARCHITECTURES

MANY ADVANCED DEFENSE SYSTEMS, UNDER DEVELOPMENT OR IN THE PLANNING STAGES, HAVE DISTRIBUTED COMPUTER/COMMUNICATION ARCHITECTURES AS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE TOTAL SYSTEM. THE PERFORMANCE OF THESE SOPHISTICATED SYSTEMS SHOULD BE EVALUATED BEFORE THEY ARE BUILT. BECAUSE OF THEIR INCREASING COMPLEXITY SIMULATION MODELS FOR PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF THESE ARCHITECTURES ARE BECOMING MORE COSTLY TO BUILD AND DEBUG. A NEW SYSTEM - THE NETWORK ARCHITECTURE SIMULATION SYSTEM (NASS) - HAS ADVANCED THE STATE-OF-THE-ART IN BUILDING THESE DISTRIBUTED ARCHITECTURE MODELS (SUCH AS COMMAND AND CONTROL SYSTEMS). THE PROPOSED EFFORT WILL DEVELOP A NASS MODEL OF A COMMAND AND CONTROL DISTRIBUTED ARCHITECTURE. IT WILL BE DRIVEN BY A REALISTIC TEST BED ND USED FOR PARAMETRIC EVALUATION OF CRITICAL PERFORMANCE INDICES IN ORDER TO ESTABLISH ARCHITECTURAL REQUIREMENTS AND/OR EVALUATE CANDIDATE ARCHITECTURES. THE ADVANTAGES OF NASS CAPABILITIES (HIGH LEEL LANGUAGE, EXTENSIVE REPORT GENERATION FEATURES, ETC.) WILL BE DEMONSTRATED. THE TIME REQUIRED TO DEVELOP A SOPHISTICATED MODEL WILL BE MINIMIZED WHILE STILL PROVIDING A FLEXIBLE FRAMEWORK FOR MODEL EXPERIMENTATION.