COTS Collaboration Tools

1
COTS Collaboration Tools

• COTS Collaboration Vision
• Then and Likely Future
• George Edw. Seymour
• Space Naval Warfare Systems Center, San Diego

2
Enabling the Information Dominance
Transformation Via COTS Collaboration Tools A
Presentation Scheduled for the Department of
Defense Human Factors Engineering Technical
Advisory Group (TAG-47), October 22-25, 2001, San
Diego, California.
3
CAUTION

• The half-life of this presentation is
  approximately three months.

4
Information technology is obviously
changing the face of warfare, and while no one
out there really knows exactly where things are
going in the future, we need to have an
aggressive program to ensure were the ones
determining our own future. Admiral Dennis C.
Blair
Source Military Information Technology, Volume
4, Issue Number 8.
5
Quick IT TestCan you answer these five
communication questions?

• On the InterNet, what does IM mean?
• What is the fastest cell phone data rate and
  who accomplished it when?
• Name one advantage to PANs?
• What is the UNP?
• About how many COTS collaboration tools exist
  today?

6
Elusive Evolving Interactions
COLLABORATION
INFORMATION EXPLOSION
COTS
C2
7
Todays Agenda

• C4 Military Universal (9)
• Information Explosion (6)
• COTS Definition, Drivers, Growth (8)
• Collaboration Definition, Tools, Trends (18)
• COTS Collaboration A Database
• COTS C4 Likely Future Flexible Collaboration
  Networks

8
Command, Control, Communications, and Computers
9
C2 A Military Universal

• The exercise of authority and direction by a
  properly designated commander over assigned and
  attached forces in the accomplishment of the
  mission.
• Functions are performed through an arrangement of
  personnel, equipment, communications, facilities,
  and procedures employed by a commander in
  planning, directing, coordinating, and
  controlling forces and operations in the
  accomplishment of the mission.

10
REAL WORLD The Problem
I assumed the mayor was downtown at the city's
new emergency command center, a 15 million
bunker constructed on the 23rd floor of one of
the smaller buildings in the World Trade Center
complex. I didn't know that the building that
housed it had already been evacuated. Grabbing a
cab downtown, I asked the driver to turn up the
radio. On the all-news radio station 1010 WINS,
Joan Fleisher, a business-side staffer for the
station, was on the line describing the site.
The vice president was on the line for Giuliani.
The mayor walked into a private office to take
the call. He barely got out the words "Mr. Vice
President," before the phone went dead. New York
was under attack, the White House had been
evacuated and communications were down. It was a
doomsday scenario. Source http//www.nydailynew
s.com/2001-10-21/News_and_Views/City_Beat/a-129268
.asp
11
REAL WORLD The Problem
Air Force Gen. Richard Myers wasn't in the
Pentagon when terrorists attacked it Sept.11, but
the event was still a nightmare for him.
Watching the events unfold on television was
"like watching a bad movie," the current chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told American Forces
Radio and Television Service Oct. 17. Myers said
he was on Capitol Hill that morning in the
offices of Georgia Sen. Max Cleland to discuss
his confirmation hearing to become chairman.
While in an outer office, he said, he saw a
television report that a plane had hit the World
Trade Center. They thought it was a small plane
or something like that, Myers said. So the two
men went ahead with the office call.Meanwhile,
the second World Trade Center tower was hit by
another jet. "Nobody informed us of that," Myers
said. But when we came out, that was obvious.
Then, right at that time, somebody said the
Pentagon had been hit. Somebody thrust a cell
phone in Myers's hand. Gen. Ralph Eberhart,
commander of U.S. Space Command and the North
American Aerospace Defense Command, was on the
other end of the line "talking about what was
happening and the action she was going to take.
His predecessor, Army Gen. Henry Shelton, was
"somewhere over the Atlantic" en route to Europe
when the attacks occurred, so it was critical for
Myers to get back to the Pentagon. After learning
that the National Military Command Center in the
Pentagon hadn't been evacuated, Myers headed
straight there and was soon joined by Defense
Secretary.
12
Military Requirement

• From 1798 through 1993, 195 years, the U.S. has
  used its military forces overseas 234 times
  (Collier, 1993)
• Traditional HA/DR worldwide
• COTS (on the battlefield)
• COTS (in the office)
• New War-Based Global Information Exchange

Collaboration
13
C2 A Systems Universal?

• Quick Question Where is the largest, most
  sophisticated command-and-control center in the
  world?

14
New York City C2 State-of-the-Art
New York City Mayor's Office Of Emergency
Management (OEM) opened its new Emergency
Operations Center (EOC) in February 1999.
15
Air Force DataWall
The increasingly complex battlefield environment
drives the requirement for the presentation and
interactive control of an endless stream of
information arriving from a diverse collection of
sensors deployed on a variety of
platforms. Source http//www.rl.af.mil/programs/
ADII/adii_dw.html
16
MITRE's Air Force C2 Center
And we're also very good at throwing out things,
even facts, that seem to refute it. So we have a
difficult time maintaining multiple concurrent
hypotheses, and this is not something that folks
normally think about when they talk about an
integrated command and control system.
17
INFORMATION EXPLOSION
18
Information Media Explosion

• Radio 38 years to reach 50 million people
• TV 13 years to reach 50 million people
• InterNet 4 years to reach 50 million
• October 2001 476 million InterNet users
• 1993 50 pages on the World Wide Web
• 2000 2.1 billion unique, publicly available
  pages
• 3,700 world radio and TV stations streaming
  audio and video
• 10 million households (35 million screens)
  broadband
• By 2007, more than 60 percent of the U.S.
  population age 15 to 50 will carry or wear a
  wireless computing and communications device at
  least six hours a day.

19
INFORMATION TODAY

• The world's total yearly production of print,
  film, optical, and magnetic content would require
  roughly 1.5 billion (GB) gigabytes of storage.
  This is the equivalent of 250 megabytes per
  person for each man, woman, and child on earth.

Over 93 percent of the information produced in
1999 was in digital format.
Source Lyman Varian, 2000
20
INFORMATION TRENDS

• Four Critical Facts and Trends
• Paucity of Print
• Democratization of Data
• Dominance of Digital Content
• Magnetic Storage is by Far the Largest Medium
  for Storing Information

Source Lyman Varian, 2000
21
Content vs. Connectivity

• The Internet is widely regarded as primarily a
  content delivery system. Yet historically,
  connectivity has mattered much more than content.
  Even on the Internet, content is not as important
  as is often claimed, since it is e-mail that is
  still the true "killer app.
• The primacy of connectivity over content
  explains phenomena that have baffled wireless
  industry observers, such as the enthusiastic
  embrace of SMS (Short Message System) and the
  tepid reception of WAP (Wireless Application
  Protocol) (Odlyzko, 2001).

22
Information 2001 Beyond

• During the past 25 years, a wave of technologic
  and organizational restructuring has been rolling
  across the world's industrial economies.
• DARPAs 1995 policy shift The Signal
• Electronic Information Technology
• Beyond IM to integrated messaging (unified)
• Learning Organization Technologies MIT
• PANs (personal area networks)
• Symmetrically-informed transactions
• Sprint and Lucents G3 cell phone

23
Commercial-off-the-Shelf
24
COTS What is it?

• Childlessness Overcome Through Surrogacy
• Coalition on Temporary Shelter (Detroit,
  Michigan)
• Commercial Off-The-Shelf
• Committee On Technical Security
• Committee On Temporary Shelter
• Container Offloading Transfer System
• Source http//www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp
  ?acronymCOTSstringexact

25
COTS NATOs View

• Industrial and commercial-grade information
  technology (IT) products such as workstations,
  networking products, and databases have long been
  employed by the military. While these are clearly
  commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) information
  technology products, the term COTS now commonly
  includes commodity personal computers, operating
  systems and productivity tools designed for the
  consumer market. Commercial office automation
  suites, electronic mail, databases, and similar
  business-oriented software are often directly
  applicable to military needs and can be run
  effectively on inexpensive personal computers.
• NATO Symposium, 2000

26
COTS Study

• DTIC was searched for all unclassified Government
  documents from the earliest dates, that contained
  either "COTS" or "commercial off the shelf"
  and "collabo."
• That search yielded 307 documents meeting those
  criteria, and were dated from 1954 to July, 2001.
• The first use of COTS as intended here was
  Report ADA166027 in December, 1984.

27
COTS Drivers

• For 15 years, Hughes had the Navy tactical C3I
  workstation business locked up (Baker, 1997)
• Consumer electronics explosion
• Dramatic price/performance ratio changes
• DOD interoperability mandate
• DOD movement to cost-containment
• Open systems architectures
• Technology insertions versus lifetime buys
• Telecommuting in the Federal Sector

28
1962 The New Digital Order

• 1962 NTDS goes to sea and 19 out of every 20
  officers in the U.S. Navy greeted the new
  seagoing command and control system and its
  digital computers with a mixture of apprehension,
  distrust, and even rage (Boslaugh, 1999).

NEL (SSC-SD) played an early and pivotal role in
developing NTDS. Picture is Advanced Combat
Direction System, a replacement for NTDS on
non-Aegis surface warships, aircraft carriers,
and amphibious ships.
29
COTS on the Battlefield

• The Navy is embracing COTS C4 technology like
  never before.  In February, about 2,000 seagoing
  officers were outfitted with Palm handheld
  computers and now use them for scheduling and
  communications. Commanders can instantly e-mail
  orders, one at a time or en masse. In June, the
  submarine USS Dolphin, cruising 400 below the
  surface of the Pacific, sent the first underwater
  e-mail from a moving vessel, using software from
  a Massachusetts contractor. (also BBC News 13
  June, 2000)

30
COTS on the Battlefield

• Recall last April, when a Navy spy plane was
  forced to land in China. Part of the story was
  broadcast to viewers all over the world by CNN,
  who used a video phone to transmit the live
  images of the crew boarding the chartered jet and
  then its departure.

TH-1 "Talking Head" Codec for live video audio
on demand via ISDN Inmarsat satellite. 7E
Communications.
31
Collaboration
32
Flashback

• 1980 Do you remember
• Card Catalogues
• Slide Briefings
• Film Strips
• Audio Cassettes
• Reel to Reel Movie Projectors

33
COTS Collaboration Status

• Third Digital Revolution is Here, but
• Collaboration Paradox
• Twenty years ago phone, e-mail, fax
• Today e-mail, phone, fax, cell phone
• Tomorrow Carbon-Silicon Network
• Collaboration Definition
• The COTS Collaboration Roller Coaster

34
COTS Collaboration Roller Coaster

• WAP was first developed by Unwired Planet in 1997
• Which became Phone.com
• Phone.com and Software.com merged and are now
  called Openwave
• Best U.S. sites for WAP information are
  http//www.ayg.com/ and http//www.allnetdevices.
  com/

35
Collaboration Tools What were they?

• Top Ten Internet Collaborative Tools (1998)
• 1. Email
• 2. Listservs
• 3. Newsgroups
• 4. BBSes
• 5. Web-Conferencing
• 6. Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
• 7. Muds/Moos
• 8. IPhone and Internet Radio
• 9. Desktop Video Conferencing
• 10. VRML Chat Systems

36
Collaboration New World Order

• The InterNet transformed the world by linking
  computers to each other The World Wide Web
  transformed the world by providing an easy
  multimedia interface for accessing documents and
  files on those computers. Today, something big
  is happening. Houses are talking to computers.
  Magazines are talking to wireless phones. Cars
  are talking to the InterNet. Its already
  begun.We have entered the era in which things
  dont just think, but share what they know with
  each other.

The quote was provided by Motorola, 2001
37
Collaboration What is it?

• Today, over 10 of the U.S. workforce
  teleworks.
• The new work currency wont be intellectual
  capital. It will be social capitalthe collective
  value of whom we know and what well do for each
  other.
• Work is a social event.
  

38
COTS Collaboration Trends

• The Old Way Lotus Notes or Microsoft Exchange
  expensive rollouts to hundreds of machines.
• The New Way teamware or groupware, intranets,
  real-time discussion and even peer-to-peer
  software--generally don't replicate the features
  of Notes or Exchange. They let companies quickly
  post collabor-ation software on servers.

Source http//www.internetweek.com/indepth01/inde
pth092601.htm
39
Collaboration Where it Helps

• According to an April, 2001 Joint Collaboration
  Workshop
• Theater Engagement
• Effects Based Operations (EBO)
• Rapid Decision Operations (RDO)
• Virtual Situation Book
• Distributed SA
• PAO Operations, etc.
• Virtual CT 2001
• Source http//www.dodccrp.org/collaboration_ws/pd
  f/wg_A.pdf

40
COTS COLLABORATION NOW

• Defense Intelligence Agency 2.4 M Joint
  Collaborative Environment (JCE) is using
  InfoWorkSpace which uses a physical metaphor to
  add context to the virtual world. Users meet in
  virtual buildings, floors, and rooms and
  collaborate using advanced Java collaboration
  tools such as voice-over-IP, text chat, desktop
  video conferencing, whiteboards and virtual file
  storage. (GD, December, 2000).
• VNCI recent award of a sole-source contract for
  video communications networks from Maxwell Air
  Force Base in Montgomery, Ala. The contract
  follows on the heels of the initial purchase and
  installation of VNCI's Visual Networking Systems
  by the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (PNS) in August
  (Interface Now, 2001).

41
COTS VTC The Drivers

• After September 11th
• "Since the tragedy, our business has doubled,"
  Bob Kaphan, president and chief executive of
  Proximity Video Conferencing
• At Sprint Corp., usage of the company's
  videoconferencing lines and equipment jumped 40
  percent (in the following week)
• At Essex, Mass.-based Affinity VideoNet, the
  telephone started ringing off the hook just two
  days after the attacks, said David Carlson, the
  firm's president and co-owner.

42
COTS The FutureVOIP According to Jeff Pulver

• Future networks will be IP-based. Instead of
  running data over voice networks, we will be
  running voice over data networks.
• Windows XP will unleash more than 50 million IP
  Communications endpoints, the likes of which we
  have never seen before. Similar efforts can be
  expected in the future from Apple and Sun.
• H.323 also is alive and well, as is MGCP and
  Megaco. But SIP will dominate new services and
  features.

43
COTS The Future IM

• Started long ago (talk fred_at_fishnet.net)
• IRC created 1988 at University of Oulu, Finland
• AOL initiated IM in 1989
• AOL innovation in 1996 buddy list
• AOL allows anyone to use software in 1997
• Three methods used to move messages
• Centralized, Peer-to-Peer, Combination
• In the workplace (quietly) (Boulton, 2001)
• Zaplets (lessons learned locally)

44
Peer to Peer Another Wave

• When you can add a second 1-GHz CPU to a desktop
  for 600 instead of getting an additional CPU on
  an enterprise server for 15,000, that looks
  pretty good," says Steven Neiman, who heads up
  high-performance computing for J.P. Morgan
  Chase.
• "XML tagging, combined with HTML and the
  peer-to-peer architecture of NXT3, enables you
  to pull fragments of distributed content together
  on the fly and create new documents," says task
  force member Brand Niemann, a computer scientist
  with the Environmental Protection Agency.

Source http//www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/internet/08/0
3/p2p.potential.idg/
45
DoCoMo

• Japan's DoCoMo rolled out the world's first 3G
  service on Oct. 1, testing for the first time
  what most of the telecommunications industry
  hopes will revive slumping profits and interest
  in mobile applications. In addition to handsets
  with videoconferencing capability, the DoCoMo
  service also includes a wireless networking card
  for laptops that offers very quick Web access.
  Ideally, 3Gnetworks can allow users to download
  data at 40 times the normal rate for wireless
  Internet. Test users of DoCoMo's service said
  the coverage has been spotty and often drops the
  connection, though it is getting better. DoCoMo
  President Keiji Tachikawa hopes for six million
  Freedom of Mobile Multimedia Access users in
  three years. (Wall Street Journal, 2 October
  2001)

46
E-Mail Enabled Groupware

• The "Big-Three" groupware vendors, Microsoft,
  Novell and Lotus, all supply groupware enabled
  messaging platforms, which occupy 90 of Fortune
  1000s corporate networks. All three products,
  Lotus Notes Domino, Novell GroupWise and
  Microsoft Exchange, offer "Unified Messaging"
  (UM) support and integrate well with a wide array
  of third party UM products, such as Lucent
  Technologies Octel Voice Messenger or Optus
  FacSys Fax Server. The remaining messaging
  servers, such as NTMail, Eudora WorldMail,
  MailSite and numerous others, concentrate
  specifically upon e-mail and message
  transferring, and do not offer UM support. We
  therefore define them as "e-mail" servers and not
  "messaging" or "groupware" servers.
• The typical acquisition cost for a 250 user
  groupware enabled e-mail system is about 12,000
  (USD), a straight POP3 e-mail system for 250
  users will cost approximately 5,000 (USD).
• ICQ just rolled out ICQ Groupware in beta.
  http//www.icq.com/products/

Source http//www.intranetjournal.com/articles/20
0001/cl_01_20_00a.html
47
PrivatePage On-Premise Paging

• The messages I sent from my office in San
  Francisco transmitted to almost 1/2 mile away.
  Reception will be a little better if you're
  planning to use PrivatePage in flatter parts of
  the country. But if your work environment is
  spread out, you have two available options
  increase range with a CB antenna, or add mobility
  to the base unit via a car adapter. Both devices
  are available at any electronics store.
• Use of this product really couldnt be easier.
  With a 170 initial investment and 50 per pager,
  you own all of the equipment with NO future
  charges. So, if you can localize your pager
  needs, PrivatePage is definitely preferable to
  the hassles you encounter with standard pagers.

Source http//telecom.hellodirect.com/docs/Review
s/PrivatePage.1.011501.asp
48
Extreme COTS Collaboration

• Voice Boards
• DoCoMo (i-mode java enabled phones)
• Streaming PowerPoint
• Peer-to-Peer (brokered grids)
• RoseTel Advanced Telecommunications Worldwide
• Mobile Display
• Embedded Communication Broker (ECB)

49
COTS The Future Tool Box

• During the past few months a database of 615 (as
  of 10/10/01) COTS collaboration-related
  services/tools was built.
• It evolves rapidly.
• Database Features
• Fifteen pages of service/tool names
• Inactive tools/services are not numbered
• Ninety-nine percent are source hyper-linked
• One hundred and two percent are annotated with
  brief sentences about their function

50
COTS Database Features

• As of October 10th
• 75 page (900KB) Word document
• 665 alphabetized single line items
• 615 numbered hyper-linked items
• 614 descriptive paragraph endnotes
• 131 (21) free items.
• 34 (6) unified items
• Item COTS collaboration product or service

51
Selected COTS Has Beens

• Ding by Activerse
• Done.com
• Juston
• Launchpad
• MyInternetDesktop
• NetForum
• RoundTable

Chat, file transfer and messaging options good
security. First virtual office to integrate web
conferencing (via WebEx) into its basic
architecture. Novell discontinued as of January
31, 2001 was an editors choice. General Dynamics
product (now IM part of InfoWorkSpace) Was nice
cross platform office suite Once popular, went
from freeware to commercial to freeware to
gone. Was three window drag drop conferencing
system.
N 50
52
Our COTS Collaborative Future

• DoCoMo
• ECB
• G3
• ICQ
• IM
• IRC
• I-MODE
• MGCP

• P2P
• PAN
• SIP
• SM3
• UNP
• VOIP
• VRML
• WAP

etc.
53
COTS Lessons Learned

• Most organizations, for the most part, including
  the military, are in the information business
• Data, information, and people are distributed
  worldwide, and functionally are topic specific
• Knowledge and wisdom are more centralized, and
  functionally are topic specific
• Ubiquitous communication acts as a knowledge
  amplifier, but needs to be managed
• Work is a social digital event (the
  Carbon-Silicon Network)

54
CONCLUSIONS

• DoD is behind the curve about the scope and
  variety of COTS collaboration tools
• COTS is the future for C4 (much of IT)
• Content is not king collaboration is
• National differences noted in IT focus
• Any useful definition of collaboration is driven
  by technology, and thus evolves
• You DO NOT want free COTS tools at work
• The military will require robust, stable, secure,
  and joint/coalition collaboration/IT tools

55
RECOMMENDATION
To Enable the Information Dominance Transformation

• DoD Requires a Joint COTS Collaboration Tool
  Taskforce (JC2T2)

56
POC

• A digital copy of presentation (not the database)
  available upon request
• Contact George Edw. Seymour, Ph.D.
• E-mail SpaceWalker_at_spawar.navy.mil
• Phone (DSN or 619) 553-8008
• URL http//www.2-SIR.com/TwinFalls/

57
Hyperlinked References

• Baker, D. COTS Computer Technology, 1997
• CIA At Cold War's End, 1999.
• Cole, R., Fortes, J, Klinger, A. International
  Collaboration in Computer Science and
  Engineering. 1998.
• Collier, E.C. Instances of use of United States
  Forces Abroad, 1798 1993. DON Historical
  Center, 1993.
• Echevarria II, A. J. Tomorrow's Army The
  Challenge of Nonlinear Change, 1998.

58
References Continued

• Forward thinker Q A Admiral Blair Interview.
• GD General Dynamics News Release, Dec. 2000
• InterFace Now, September, 2001.
• Lyman Varian. UC Berkeley How Much
  Information, October, 2000.
• Odlyzko, A. Content is Not King, First Monday
  2001
• Pulver, J. The Pulver Report, September, 2001.
• Snyder, D.P. The Light _at_ the End of the 20th
  Century.
• Snyder, D.P. Roller Coaster 2000.

59
Additional References

• Boslaugh, D. L. When Computers Went to Sea The
  Digitization of the United States Navy, 1999.
  
• Brownsword. L, Carney, D., Oberndorf, T. The
  Opportunities and Complexities of Applying
  Commercial-Off-the-Shelf Components, 1998.
• Bush, Vannevar Timeline 1890 to 1974.
• Coalition Command and Control Bibliography, Sept.
  2000
• Morris, E. Toward a process framework for COTS
  evaluation, 1998.
• Segal, N. Video Phones Behind the Scenes in
  Afghanistan. Streaming Media World, October 8,
  2001.
• Williams, C. Lind, J.M. "Can We Afford a
  Revolution in Military Affairs?" 1999.