Joint Network-Centric capabilities are essential to regaining effective battlespace. The US Department of Defense no longer leads information technology as it did prior to the advent of the Internet. The commercial IT marketplace has already embraced the open architecture approach, providing competitive, cost-effective opportunities for new capability insertion. Key tenets of Global Information Grid(GIG), such as web-based Command & Control, Information Dissemination Management and HSI depend on Open Architecture. The Dpeartment of Defense has defined the following goals for the implementation of Open Architecture:
- Eliminate duplication, incompatibility and redundancy of systems and business processes.
- Manage knowledge as a corporate asset using standard information as a driver.
- Enable a workforce of effective managers equipped with the right information to make informed business decisions.
- Provide information integrity.
- Adopt leading practices to optimize business processes.
- Emphasize cooperative strategies for satisfying common needs across the enterprise.
- Capture and validate information once and reuse it across the enterprise.
- Provide security and protection of sensitive information.
- Affect changes through increasing efficiency and economy of scale.
- Create consistent enterprise architecrure products with sufficient detail for implementation.
Klett Consulting Group is a dedicated advocate of implementing the multi-faceted strategies to provide a framework for developing joint interoperable systems that adapt and exploit open-system design principles and architectures. Among those core principles are modular design and design disclosure, reusable application software, interoperable joint warfighting applications with secure information exchange, life cycle affordability, and encouraging competition and collaroration. We believe that Open Architecture is our path to accomodating changing technologies and requirements.
