US Navy Interactive Electronic Technical Manuals

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US Navy Interactive Electronic Technical Manuals

• Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Steve Hamby XML Architect 404-368-2906 steve.hamby
_at_softwareagusa.com
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Project Overview

• Interactive Electronic Technical Manuals (IETM)
• A vendor changes equipment on a Naval or Coast
  Guard vessel or land-based asset
• Need to provide an IETM that is specific to that
  vessel with a specific system and a specific
  version of that system Field Change (392
  vessels, 12 radar systems, many variants of each)
• Current approach is paper-based
• In some cases, sailors get a Field Change
  Addendum and remove and insert pages according to
  instructions
• Reasons for moving to electronic version
• Lower costs for deploying Field Changes
• Search, which allows faster repairs
• Safety ensure sailors always have the correct
  manual
• Reuse of Content across manuals one change of
  data
• Quicker fielding of equipment improvements
• Chose to deploy on CD for ease of use on vessel
• CD includes XML data, XML database, webserver,
  and application

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Reasons to Use XML for IETM model

• Improved Search
• HTML alone only provides text search
• XML provides structure and text search
• Vendors already provide equipment change
  information as XML
• Reuse of content across manuals (content that
  explains how to remove a thingy could be
  applied to troubleshooting, operations,
  maintenance, etc.)
• Lower costs for IETM maintenance
• Images are SVG (can provide images specific to
  sailor requirements)
• XML editors provide structured editing
  environment
• low-cost plumbing of standard XML processing
  provided a faster development cycle
• XML provides complex links XLink
• XML provides structure for multiple versions of
  content

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Process for Creating / Editing IETMs

• Vendor notification of equipment improvements
• Modification is scheduled
• Vendor sends updated manual information via XML
• XML is converted to Navy terms, edited and a
  Field Change created
• Afer successful deployment of equipment change, a
  new IETM is created for all vessels that have
  just received the equipment change and IETM is
  deployed via CD
• Land-based assets access IETMs via the Intranet
  the IETM is generated based on content that is
  specific to their configuration

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Characteristics and Benefits of CD Deployment

• Favorable to deploying HTML or raw text to CD
• Provides structured search
• Automatically detects the client machine
  environment upon launch and determines port and
  browser issues
• Zero client footprint leaves no trace on client
  machine
• No installation to client machines and
  client-server issues
• Client level database without need for client
  level DBA
• Signs data and configuration to ensure that data
  is not modified by user (this was a requirement
  for this application)
• Can deploy the same application that is used by
  land-based assets, but only the data that is
  required on the CD

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Sequence at Runtime

• Starts automatically upon CD / DVD insertion
  assuming that autostart property is set on
  drive optionally, an index file is supplied on
  CD IAW NMCI
• Checks client configuration and creates
  configuration files, environment variables, etc
  for applications to use
• Launches applications and Tamino XML Server per
  defined configuration
• User works with client application and terminates
  the application or removes CD
• Stops applications and Tamino XML Server per
  defined application
• Cleans up environment variables, temporary files,
  etc

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Why Native XML Database

• Microsoft SQL Server is already deployed on all
  vessels for other reasons
• No restrictions on storing XML in regards to
  structured or semi-structured XML documents
  XML-enabled RDBMS require a declaration of this
  at schema development
• IETM schema is semi-structured use of mixed
  content and highly recursive to many levels
• Support for more than validating and storing XML
• XLink
• SVG
• RDF
• XSL
• DOM / SAX / etc
• Tamino XML Server, specifically, had
  functionality for CD deployment

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Conceptual View of an XML Server - Repository
Trusted Content
Metadata Repository
Digital Library
Web Services
Data Exchange
Content Management
XML Registry
Application Development
MobileSolutions
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Tamino Architecture
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What is Tamino XML Server?
A Native XML Server that automates the storage,
management, publishing and exchange of XML
documents

• Seamlessly represents XML in XML terms
• Doesnt force user to translate to another idiom
• No efficient internal format other than XML
• Uses Web and XML Standard Interfaces
• XML standards such as XPath, XQuery, DOM
• Not proprietary extensions to SQL
• XML DTDs, Schemas rather than RDBMS schemas
• Supports many XML standards
• RDF / OWL
• XLink
• XForms
• many more

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Demo