By Geoff Fein
The Navy’s eighth quarterly report to Congress on open architecture (OA) outlines a number of efforts the service plans for 2010 including publishing a guidebook for requirements officers and providing rules to incorporate OA into the enterprise architecture.
This report also marks the end of the first year of the Navy providing the Senate Armed Services Committee with updates on progress in implementing OA across the service.
The 39-page report outlines efforts the Chief of Naval Operations staff; the Open Architecture enterprise Team (OAET); various Marine Corps and Navy domains, have planned for fiscal year 2010.
One effort is to publish an Open Architecture Requirements Officer’s Guidebook. According to the report, “the guidebook will advise OPNAV staff on how to include Navy OA (NOA) technical and business attributes in Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) Capability Development Documents (CD), Capability Production Documents (CPD) and other requirements documents.”
The OAET will provide the Navy’s Chief Information Officer with rules to incorporate NOA principles into the Navy enterprise architecture in the second quarter of FY ’10, according to the report.
The OAET will also publish a new OA Contract Guidebook for Program Managers in the second quarter of FY ’10 to include updated language to help program manager conduct full and open competition and obtain appropriate data rights consistent with Federal Acquisition regulations, the report said.
The OAET will also work to transition the Software hardware Asset Reuse Enterprise (SHARE) repository to SHARE II via a Phase 2 Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR). Fairfax, Va.-based Trident Systems was awarded that SBIR (Defense Daily, Feb. 4).
“SHARE II will capture SHARE’s functional and federation capabilities, but also implement the ontological research of Naval Post Graduate School,” the report said.
The Navy is in the third year of operating the SHARE repository. The repository holds software and hardware that the government owns on its own, either through government purpose rights or unlimited rights (Defense Daily, Feb. 2, 2007).
In the coming year, the aviation domain will begin implementing an OA business strategy that includes NOA and Modular Open Systems approach (MOSA) principles in new Acquisition Category (ACAT) program strategies and plans. Examples include the Next Generation Jammer (NGJ), U.S. Army-led Common Infrared Countermeasure System and P-8A Increment 2, which have near-term, FY ’10 and FY ’11 competition opportunities, according to the report.
The aviation domain will also determine key internal and external interfaces for P-8A Increment 2, NGJ, Joint Precision and Landing System (JPALS), and the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance Unmanned Aircraft System.
For Aegis Advanced Capability Build (ACB) 14 and Ships Self Defense System ACB 12, the surface domain will leverage the Surface Navy Combat System Software Product Line Architecture Description Document (ADD) which describes the software architecture for Navy surface domain combat system product line, the report said.
The surface domain will also begin to architect the Air & Missile Defense Radar (AMDR). “This architecture will be developed to tolerate total system growth, extensibility and scaling-particularly in the aperture, according to the report.
“This will permit a number of variants mountable to multiple ship classes,” the report said.
In FY ’10, the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) 05 Architectures, Interfaces and Modular Systems (AIMS) program will focus the hull, mechanical and electrical (HM&E)- based modularity ship design processes on four activities:
- Leverage historical data and affordability objectives to determine targets for HM&E modularity.
- Continue Flexible Infrastructure (FI) system development in support of NAVSEA 05 ship design efforts.
- Implement selected FI products and prototypes within the fleet. Initial targets for implementation include surface ships such as the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), DDG-51 and LHAs.
- Develop Modular Adaptable Ship guidelines.
The submarine domain will be tasked with ensuring that the Ohio-class replacement program adheres to NOA guidance and continues to embrace NOA principles in the development stage of the program, leading up to Milestone A in the third quarter of FY ’10.
Additionally, the submarine domain will complete the Submarine Architecture Roadmap in the second quarter FY ’10, which will identify the aspects of the submarine architecture that need to evolve over the next five to 10 years to meet future capabilities and business needs.
The submarine domain will also develop an Advanced Processing Build 11 architecture design in the third quarter of FY ’10, which will consider updated middleware technologies and services to ease the effort required to integrate APB11 components into the Submarine Warfare Federated Tactical System, according to the report.
In the anti-submarine warfare domain, the AN/SQQ-89A(V)15 undersea warfare system ACB11 software version 4.0 containing OA reuse submarine APB09 passive sonar software will enter final production and integration in the third quarter FY ’10.
In the second quarter of FY ’10, the Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence domain will conclude a 14-month assessment of the benefits and costs of two separate development efforts for the Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services (CANES) Common Computing environment prior to entrance into a four-month downselect phase, the report said.
The space domain will explore architectural alternatives and technology enhancements for the follow-on to the Mobile User Objective System.
The Littoral and Mine Warfare (LMW) domain will conduct a Joint Counter radio-controlled Improvised Explosive Device Electronic Warfare (JCREW)3.3 Milestone C review in FY ’11. LMW will leverage OA design features to implement an “open business” technology insertion/refresh strategy, the report said.
“Section C of the request for proposal mandates use of open architecture and well-defined common standards, as well as defined hardware and software interfaces,” the report added.
LMW will also publish the LCS OA Strategy and Implementation Plan in the second quarter FY ’10, and an OA Plan in the fourth quarter of FY ’10.
The Marine Corps will anticipate issuing Phase 1 requests for information for the Common Aviation Command and Control System (CAC2S) to industry that support OA precepts. These will focus on:
- Joint Range Extension application Protocol requirements;
- Track management requirements; and
- Display framework requirements.
The Marine Corps will conduct a preliminary design review in the second quarter of FY ’11 and a critical design review in the fourth quarter of FY ’11.
The Navy is also looking for opportunities to introduce competition and offer small businesses and other organizations and opportunity to compete with the providers of the Navy’s “traditionally vendor-locked, monolithic systems,” the report said.
Among the programs noted in the report that could provide opportunities for small business are the E-2C and E-2D, JPALS, and NGJ.