SBIR-STTR Award

The expanding demand for Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance (ISR) information, analysis, and real-time data to support the warfighter activities has resulted in an increasing number of multiple systems, applications, data sources and stores. This increased capabilities need has the potential to overwhelm the physical footprints to deploy the servers, data storage devices and communications gear. With limited space, storage, and computational capabilities it is becoming more difficult to deploy new and more capable systems. Unfortunately, the newer systems do not always maintain the legacy systems capabilities and this could adversely affect the warfighter mission. An approach to this problem that has worked in the commercial world is to instantiate a virtualization environment wherein existing infrastructure is multi-purposed through the use of tools like VMware®. Virtualization of large commercial environments has demonstrated savings in energy use, physical footprints, maintenance costs, application deployment effort and costs. In addition, virtualization has demonstrated increased uptime and reliability of the computing environment. A virtualization approach is proposed for a test and evaluation ISR system that currently resides on multiple servers distributed through the development facility and at a remote site. In order to demonstrate the capability of a deployment ready virtual environment.

Keywords:
Virtualization, Servers, Net-Centric, Isr, Automated Installation, Remote Access

Accurate Automation Corporation proposes an innovative application of virtualization tools to complex information systems, especially the Joint Multi-mission Protection System (JUMPS). The program includes three parts. 1. A plan will be developed and implemented to facilitate the operation and to manage the growth of the JUMPS. This plan will leverage Virtual Machines (VMs), which abstract applications from the hardware on which they run. Hardware changes and growth will be achieved with few or no modifications to the VMs and their applications. Furthermore, VMs will improve application availability and will provide fault tolerance. 2. A new class of application tool will help the JUMPS program address the diverse requirements of a large number of user agencies. Each agency will tailor ?minion? apps within the constraints of a common JUMPS software library. Minions will be delivered to host sites where they ?look after? the interests of the agency. Minions address the issue of limited bandwidth by improving peripheral access to central resources. 3. A management tool will optimize system performance while considering potential attacks, thereby improving survivability beyond the level provided by the enterprise virtualization tools. This management tool is necessary because the U.S. Army faces a substantially greater threat environment than a typical enterprise organization. The method differs significantly from typical approaches to network optimization because the potential actions of adversaries are considered. Accurate Automation will virtualize the JUMPS in a way that manages growth, including the diverse requirements of an expanding user-base, thus minimizing programmatic risk, while simultaneously addressing the severe threat environment in which the U.S. Military operates, thus minimizing physical risk. Accurate Automation has demonstrated a solid understanding of the virtualization tools and is technically competent in a wide array of fields related to the application. Accurate Automation has a good understanding of the JUMPS program and of the related DCGS-A program.

Keywords:
Virtualization, Virtual Machine, Jumps, Dcgs-A, Information System, Data Center, Survivability, Isr