Web-Based Services Move Closer to Full Operation

Signal, May 2008 by Boland, Rita

Another capability under the SOA Foundation product line is people discovery. For the first time, the entire Defense Department population's contact information has been collected in white pages. Personnel can use the directory to find e-mail addresses, and they eventually will be able to use it to locate telephone numbers and the organizations to which individuals are assigned.

Two important NCES service security capabilities overlay all the other services. The first provides certifications such as public key infrastructure for NIPRNet and SIPRNet. The second provides attributes for making decisions about people, machines and data, such as whether an individual has a clearance. When robust certificate validation services are coupled with attribute services, officials can make policy decisions on accessing all the other services. "That's moving toward attribute-based access control identity management architecture," Siomacco says.

To ensure the health and welfare of the SOA Foundation services, the product line includes enterprise service management. This capability acts as a daily help desk. Automated tools monitor whether services are available and how they are performing.

The final product line-the portal -enables users to take advantage of the available services. DISA adopted the AKO and morphed it into DKO to serve as the access tool between personnel and tools. DKO has grown to the point that it now acts as the primary access to services for NCES users.

As the NCES moves forward, agency personnel are examining the shortfalls in the program and finding solutions. One area that could improve, according to Harris, is federation. DISA is working on how to federate all the effective SOA efforts underway across the Defense Department so they are seamless to the warfighter. The military branches are developing their own services in many instances, and DISA wants to take advantage of those efforts, leverage them in real time and reuse them when appropriate.

Protocols need attention too. "We need some more efficient bandwidth protocol," Siomacco says. When services extend to the tactical edge, communications bandwidth becomes critical, and users and providers want to save as much and make it as efficient as possible.