A FRAMEWORK FOR DYNAMIC INFORMATION SYSTEM INTEGRATION

DEVELOPMENT OF BATTLE MANAGEMENT/COMMAND, CONTROL, AND COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS (BM/C3) PRESENT SIGNIFICANT INTEGRATION, AUTHENTICATION, AND CONCURRENCY CONTROL PROBLEMS. DIFFICULT INTEGRATION PROBLEMS ARE CAUSED BY THE WIDE RANGE OF APPLICATIONS REQUIRED BY BM/C3. SUCH SYSTEMS INCLUDE: OPERATIONAL SUPPORT APPLICATIONS, DATABASES, SIMULATION, TELEMETRY MANAGEMENT, AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES SUCH AS KNOWLEDGE-BASED SYSTEMS. THIS PROPOSAL SPECIFIES BOTH A METHODOLOGY AND A TOOLKIT FOR INTEGRATING HETEROGENEOUS DATA MODELS AND APPLICATIONS. THE DESIGN IS FOCUSED ON THE RUNTIME CONFIGURATION OF DISTRIBUTED BM/C3 INFORMATION SYSTEMS FROM DIFFERENT SUBSYSTEMS. CHARACTERISTICALLY, THESE SUBSYSTEMS HAVE BEEN DEVELOPED BY DIFFERENT ORGANIZATIONS HAVING DIFFERENT CONCETUAL FRAMEWORKS AND ADDRESSING DIFFERENT APPLICATION DOMAIMS/ THE PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGY IS BASED ON AN EXPLICIT OBJECT-ORIENTED REPRESENTATION OF BOTH THE DATA SPECIFICATIONS AND OERATIONS OF THE DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM MODELS, SERVICES AND RESOURCES. SUBSYSTEMS ARE REPRESENTED WITH OBJECT-ORIENTED DESCRIPTIONS OF THEIR COMPONENTS. THIS KEY INNOVATION RESULTS IN A RECONFIGURABLE DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM SPECIFIED BY EXPLICIT, CHANGEABLE DESCRIPTIONS. ADDITIONAL KEY INNOVATIONS OF THIS PROOSAL ARE: (1) ACCOMMODATION OF EXISTING USER APPLICATIONS AND SOFTWARE; (2) CLASS LIBRARY OF FISTRIBUTED CONTROL MODELS; (3) ICON-BASED, X-WINDOWS SYSTEM CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT TOOL; (4) AND UNIFORM OBJECT-ORIENTED PROGRAMMING INTERFACES ACROSS HETEOGENEOUS ENVIRONMENTS.