DOD is extending net-centricity to RFPs

The Defense Department and the Association for Enterprise Integration are developing ways to offer incentives for using service-oriented architecture, especially when it comes to the way the department procures systems. Mike Krieger, DOD’s director of information management, said the Data Sharing and Services Strategy working group will help improve how the military services' contracting officers develop solicitations for network-centric services. “We will develop recommendations for the undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics and for the DOD chief information officer,” Krieger said Nov. 29 at a luncheon sponsored by Affirm in Washington. “We will make these recommendations this spring.” Krieger said the services are still too often developing systems that use point-to-point connections instead of using Web services to find and access data more easily and quickly from disparate databases. Along with the acquisition effort, Krieger’s office is emphasizing developing communities of interest (COIs) around specific data areas. He said COIs will have to use Web services to make information more accessible and understandable. “Finding the information when you need it is what it means to be net-centric,” Krieger said. “We believe data will eventually be a service on the Internet and not within applications.” DOD is expanding the use of COIs. Krieger said the success of the Maritime Domain Awareness COI has led to a better understanding of how to set and maintain these entities. The Maritime COI is working on its second spiral where it is developing services around the data, said Trey Rhiddlehoover, director of Global Information Grid Solutions at Solers, which supports DOD’s COI effort. “We want to give the user a richer data feed,” Rhiddlehoover said at the luncheon. “We will pilot the initial capability of these three services in the spring.” Rhiddlehoover said the three new services include data augmentation, a historical archive and the ability to detect anomalies in different data sets. He added that work on the next iteration will begin next fall and will include the integration of advanced notice of vessel arrival systems.