TACOMS+ Project Closure Report - TACOMS Live ... Project Closure Report TACOMS+/IPO(2016)R-09...

TACOMS+ Project Closure Report TACOMS+/IPO(2016)R-09

13/05/2016 TACOMS+ IPO Sezgin Abali, Richard Allen, Michel Bourgois, Marko Luoma

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TACOMS+/IPO(2016)R-09

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0. Document Control Information

0.1 Document Category

Report

0.2 Document Status

Draft

0.3 Keywords

Closure, TACOMS, Structure, Outputs, Interoperability, Finances, Next Steps, Organisation

0.4 Version History

Version No Author Date of Issue Reason for Issue

0.1 Abali 17th February 2016 Initial Draft

0.2 Abali 25th February 2016 Updated Intro and Goals sections

0.3 Abali, Allen, Luoma, Bourgois

21/03/2016 Updated draft


23/3/2016 Draft issued for PSG review


13/05/2016 Final issue


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Contents

0. DOCUMENT CONTROL INFORMATION .................................................................................................... 1

0.1 DOCUMENT CATEGORY .................................................................................................................................. 1 0.2 DOCUMENT STATUS ....................................................................................................................................... 1 0.3 KEYWORDS .................................................................................................................................................. 1 0.4 VERSION HISTORY ......................................................................................................................................... 1

1. REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................................... 4

2. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................................... 4

3. PURPOSE AND SCOPE ............................................................................................................................. 5

4. TACOMS+ PROJECT ORGANISATION ....................................................................................................... 6

4.1 PROJECT STEERING GROUP ............................................................................................................................. 7 4.2 INTERNATIONAL PROJECT OFFICE...................................................................................................................... 7 4.3 TECHNICAL WORKING GROUP ......................................................................................................................... 7 4.4 SUPPLIER TEAMS ........................................................................................................................................... 8 4.5 COLLABORATIVE IMPLEMENTATION TEAM .......................................................................................................... 8

5. PROJECT APPROACH ............................................................................................................................... 9

5.1 GENERIC IOP BEARER .................................................................................................................................. 10 5.2 CONNECTIONLESS TRANSPORT SERVICE ........................................................................................................... 10 5.3 CONNECTION ORIENTED TRANSPORT SERVICE ................................................................................................... 11 5.4 SUPPORTING THE PROJECT ............................................................................................................................ 12

6. TACOMS+ PRODUCTS ........................................................................................................................... 12

6.1 TACOMS+ CAPABILITY LIBRARIES .................................................................................................................. 12 6.1.1 Communication Transmission Services library .............................................................................. 13 6.1.2 Communication Transport Services library ................................................................................... 15 6.1.3 Core Enterprise Services Library .................................................................................................... 16

6.2 TACOMS+ ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE MODEL IN THE NATO C3 TAXONOMY ...................................................... 17 6.3 TACOMS+ REFERENCE IMPLEMENTATION ...................................................................................................... 18

7. SUPPORTING FMN ................................................................................................................................ 18

8. FINANCES ............................................................................................................................................. 20

9. NEXT STEPS ........................................................................................................................................... 20

10. CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................................ 21

11. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................................................... 23

APPENDIX A. POST-TACOMS+ POINTS OF CONTACT ..................................................................................... 24

APPENDIX B. TACOMS+ REFERENCE IMPLEMENTATION EQUIPMENT LIST .................................................... 26


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FIGURES FIGURE 1 TACOMS+ FEDERATED NETWORK.................................................................................................................... 5 FIGURE 2 TACOMS+ PROJECT ORGANISATION ................................................................................................................ 7 FIGURE 3 CIT INTERACTIONS WITHIN THE TACOMS+ PROJECT ............................................................................................ 9 FIGURE 4 TACOMS+ PROJECT DEVELOPMENT CYCLE ......................................................................................................... 9 FIGURE 5 NATO C3 TAXONOMY .................................................................................................................................. 13 FIGURE 6 TACOMS+ COMMUNICATIONS TRANSMISSION SERVICES LIBRARY ........................................................................ 14 FIGURE 7 TACOMS+ COMMUNICATIONS TRANSPORT SERVICES LIBRARY ............................................................................ 16 FIGURE 8 TACOMS+ CORE ENTERPRISE SERVICES LIBRARY ............................................................................................... 17 FIGURE 9 FMN COMMUNICATION SERVICES TECHNOLOGY ROADMAP ................................................................................ 19


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1. References

A. TACOMS+ Memorandum of Understanding, v5.7, 20/12/2011

B. NATO Consultation, Command and Control Board meeting, 13 June 2014,

AC/322(EAPC)R(2014)0004

C. MCM-0125-2012 Future Mission Network (FMN) Concept, 21 November 2012

D. NATO Federated Mission Networking Implementation Plan, C-M(2015)0003-AS1, 30

January 2015

E. FMN Service Instructions for Audio-based Collaboration 1.1, 18 February 2016

F. FMN Service Instructions for Communications 1.1, 18 February 2016

G. FMN Spiral Specifications Roadmap, 16 March 2016

2. Introduction

In any multination military alliance or coalition, it is essential that member nations are able to communicate at all required levels and by all required means. This means delivering comprehensive communication capabilities at the strategic, operational and tactical levels in any federated Land, Maritime or Air environment. As a minimum, communications capabilities should be able to carry and deliver data, generated by voice, video and other services, securely and continuously.

The effective operational performance of a coalition depends on its ability to act as a single, logical entity. In multinational operations it is important to establish and maintain a common understanding of the operational environment and the actions and activities that assigned forces are undertaking. This implies that the coalition network, commonly called a Mission Network, will need to provide common services, shared information libraries and easy communication over a shared bearer network.

The principal tools needed to achieve this are methodologies, guidance and standards for creating federated networks to provide secure, effective and reliable communication capabilities together with a range of network security and management services.

TACOMS+ provides the interoperability tools and solutions via a library of services and functions that combine to deliver a foundation for a truly federated mission network. The TACOMS+ products are available1 at https://tacoms-ea.frontend.se/

Focussed predominantly at the network layer services, TACOMS+ enables rapidly deployable, cost effective federated communication and information sharing capabilities by defining and standardising proven interoperability interfaces. Building wherever possible on open standards and protocols, it creates a common Federated Core without impacting national systems or capabilities. Multinational standardisation comes from agreeing what choices and protocols should be used at the interface between national networks. TACOMS+ provides the implementation framework and guidance which is fundamental for the provision of higher layer User services of all kinds. The solutions can be applied at all levels across international boundaries or within national systems where communication interoperability is needed.

TACOMS+ enables seamless interoperability between differing national networks to create a single, coherent federated mission network (Figure 1).

1 Requests for access to the TACOMS+ product repository should be submitted to the TACOMS+ Custodian given in Appendix A

https://tacoms-ea.frontend.se/


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Building a standardised common core network, based on multi-nationally agreed approaches and solutions, the mission partners can avoid the difficulties and cost of past operations which were reliant on multi-domain stovepipes, ad-hoc arrangements and national improvisations to deliver a functioning network.

Figure 1 TACOMS+ Federated Network

3. Purpose and scope

The TACOMS+ project operated adjacent to the normal NATO infrastructure and can be viewed in the spirit of a NATO Smart Defence Initiative. It was established, funded and directed by the Ministries of Defence of DEU, ESP, FIN, FRA, GBR, ITA, NLD, NOR, SWE, and TUR under a multination Memorandum of Understanding (Reference A).

Recognising the need for coherent multinational interoperability solutions, the objective was to standardise services and functions to create a common, technology and topology independent network interoperability layer (or federated core) for federated mission networks. The project outputs would support the creation of national and coalition mission networks and would deliver a foundation for the NATO Federated Mission Networking (FMN) initiative. Thus the project was strategically aligned with the FMN capability development as well as being strongly influenced by National and wider NATO requirements.

The TACOMS+ project aimed to deliver

the agility, flexibility and scalability to meet the requirements of the network topologies established for the accomplishment of the missions,


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a single federated network across the Joint Operating Area enabling interoperability at all levels between members of the coalition,

improved assurance and Quality of Service for selected network traffic over various technologies to ensure that time-sensitive and mission-critical applications have the resources they require, while allowing other applications access to the network,

network mobility with rapid and dynamic re-configuration as network elements relocate, join or leave the federation,

increased levels of automation in network management and configuration to reduce the workload on users and operators,

federated communication networking across different kinds of bearers (e.g. satellite, radio, Virtual Private Network etc.).

Technology and topology independence would be achieved by building capabilities based on existing commercial standards and by specifying and standardising the protocols at the interfaces between network elements to enable the interconnections and interoperability between different national Communications Infrastructures. This provides the option of using either off-the-shelf components and/or military equipment and maximises reuse of existing and planned national equipment and capabilities.

A TACOMS+ Reference Implementation (RI) would be created as an example and demonstration of the TACOMS+ interoperability solutions. The current RI consists of a federated network of nodes based on Netherlands, Norwegian and Swedish implementations of the TACOMS+ capabilities.

Close and continued cooperation with NATO bodies ensured that the TACOMS+ products can deliver benefits as widely as possible. Following endorsement from the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Board (Reference B), the TACOMS+ project is recognised as a key interoperability enabler for FMN through its support to the FMN Capability Planning Working Group.

4. TACOMS+ project organisation

TACOMS+ is a multinational collaborative project agreed between Ministries of Defence of the participating nations. The Project organisation is shown in Figure 2 although in practice the project operates as a single entity with significant interaction along the vertical axis.

The project is directed by the Project Steering Group (PSG) with execution and delivery led and managed by the International Project Office (IPO). Work packages are undertaken by supplier teams from across the participating nations. The Technical Working Group (TWG) and Collaborative Implementation Team (CIT), whose members are appointed by the Participating Nations, support the IPO, PSG and supplier teams with technical expertise and guidance and quality assurance assessment.


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Figure 2 TACOMS+ Project Organisation

4.1 Project Steering Group

The PSG consists of representatives from the Ministries of Defence of each of the contributing nations. It provides direction and guidance to support the project goals. As national representatives, the PSG members ensure that the project delivers multinational interoperability solutions that are aligned with wider NATO requirements whilst minimising the potential risk and impact to their own national capabilities.

4.2 International Project Office

The IPO is the executive body of the PSG and is formed and staffed by personnel assigned by the participating nations as outlined in the MOU. It is hosted by NATO Communications and Information (NCI) Agency, Brussels which provides commercial, legal, financial, and administrative services, within a NATO framework, under a hosting agreement with the Participating Nations.

The IPO undertakes all Project Management activities, managing practical issues, resources and finances across the project, and leads the project on behalf of the participating nations. It reports regularly to the PSG on progress, achievements, issues and risks. The IPO team is responsible for coordinating and managing activities across all project bodies (TWG, CIT, multinational supplier teams and the NCI Agency host) to deliver the project outputs in accordance with the PSG direction and MOU requirements. It also takes the lead in engagements with the wider NATO communities and multinational stakeholders such as NATO Federated Mission Networking (FMN).

4.3 Technical Working Group

The TWG provides technical and systems engineering expertise, advice, guidance and support, from a national perspective, and helps define the approach for the development of the TACOMS capabilities and their implementation. The TWG conducts quality assurance

TACOMS ORGANISATION

BOARD : Project Steering grouprepresentatives of the Participating nations

EXECUTIVE : International Project OfficeProject management and leadership

NATIONAL ADVISORS : Technical Working GroupExpertise, Guidance, QA review

V & V : Collaborative Implementatiom TeamNational implementations tested in federation

WORK PACKAGES : Multi-national team effort 9 suppliers across 6 Nations (Industry, Academia and Government orgs) and NCI Agency

WP WP WP WP


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reviews of the project outputs to ensure that the proposed capabilities are fit for purpose and satisfy national requirements and constraints.

4.4 Supplier Teams

All Work Packages are undertaken by multinational supplier teams established from subject matter experts from the participating nations and the NCI Agency. They are contracted by the IPO to undertake the development of the TACOMS products in accordance with the wide ranging national and multinational stakeholder requirements and influences.

4.5 Collaborative Implementation Team

The CIT is an international collaborative team comprised of small teams from all TACOMS+ nations acting independently but in close cooperation. It is responsible for prototype implementation of the TACOMS+ specifications and meets at least twice a year to jointly test and verify the developed products in a federated networking environment.

Each nation develops its own implementation of the TACOMS+ specifications, making independent choices in technology for hardware and software, in relationship to its national communications systems and technology preferences (e.g. COTS - Cisco, Windows, open source Linux distributions, in different mixes). This allows comprehensive testing and verification of the TACOMS+ solutions across a range of different implementation technologies whilst also identifying operational and technology constraints imposed by the national systems.

The CIT provides valuable feedback to enhance and support the development of the TACOMS+ solutions (Figure 3) but it also offers nations the opportunity to de-risk national capability planning through early implementation and assessment of the emerging multinational interoperability standards.

The CIT plays a role in four main domains

supporting the development of the technical specifications and solutions,

building a real multinational federated networking exercise environments,

international technical cooperation,

technology survey.

Implementing the TACOMS+ specification across several independent processes brings the following advantages

proof of concept - check that the specifications are feasible, preferably using a range of different technologies,

completeness and unambiguity - if several independent implementations are interoperable, the specifications can be considered sufficient and consistent,

recommendations - the CIT may discover some issues or fixes and deliver feedback and recommendations for improvements.


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Figure 3 CIT interactions within the TACOMS+ project

5. Project Approach

The project was executed on a cycle of multinational development, review, implementation, test and feedback (Figure 4). This approach significantly increased the rate of progress, ensured that the technical solutions remained focussed on achieving multinational acceptability and that the products were fit for purpose and readily implementable by nations with minimal impact to national systems.

Multinational collaboration across the entire project was critical to success. It provided a common understanding and approach amongst nations and supported the sharing of knowledge and expertise.

Figure 4 TACOMS+ project development cycle


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To manage project execution and ensure the delivery a comprehensive TACOMS+ capability, the capability requirements were sub-divided into separate, but inter-dependent sub-tasks, or Themes. This allowed efforts to be focussed more effectively against specific capability areas with work packages carefully coordinated between Themes to ensure consistency and coherency across the developing components.

Three key Themes were

Generic Interoperability Point (IOP) Bearer – enabling interoperable connections over any bearer type,

Connectionless Transport Service – establishing flexible and dynamic connectivity to the Federated Core with minimal effort,

Connection Oriented Transport Service – delivering assured communications and quality of service in a federated network environment.

5.1 Generic IOP Bearer

The ability to exchange mission critical information across coalition partners is critical to the success of a mission. Network elements could be located hundreds of kilometres apart and would rely on deployable Wide Area Networks (WAN) such as satellite and radio links for the exchange of information.

The connection characteristics of these links differ significantly from those of fibre optic. Variable characteristics such as data rate, packet loss and delay can combine to reduce Quality of Service and impact communication assurance. To address these challenges and to ensure federated communications across the broad range of NATO mission types, the Theme focussed on delivering a generic interoperability interface that enables networking across a wide range of both wired (e.g. leased lines) and wireless bearers (e.g. satellite or radio relays) at all levels of command.

The Theme goal was to develop the capability for a network element to interact with different bearers in order to provide interoperability between both co-located and non-co-located elements to ensure that critical information can be exchanged efficiently, quickly and securely within the coalition.

This capability required new mechanisms to be developed to maximize the performance capacity of the bearer, including

measurement and assessment of the bearer characteristics, such as data rate, delay, packet loss, etc., as key performance indicators

application of mitigating measures to minimize the risk of poor Quality of Service,

Contributors to this Theme were

Progesi SpA – gruppo BVTech, Italy

Michel Bourgois Consultant, France

Aalto University/School of Electrical Engineering, Finland

NATO Communication and Information (NCI) Agency

5.2 Connectionless Transport Service

Mission Networks demand increased flexibility, agility, adaptability and scalability in order to effectively and efficiently meet an increasing range of mission types, deployments and topologies. The TACOMS+ interoperability solutions support flexible and rapid operational deployment by minimising the reliance on extensive technical support for network configuration. By adding functionality that, in a secure way, supports easy connections and keeps manual intervention to a minimum, automated dynamic network configuration and re-configuration can be achieved. This delivers a flexible and agile federated mission network


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capability that is adaptable to a variety of mission types, deployments and topologies whilst significantly reducing operator workload, deployment time and cost.

Specifically, work within this Theme focussed on achieving

rapid deployment - parties first on site should be able to connect quickly and easily in any topology,

rapid expansion - new parties or network segments should be easily connected,

addition and removal of new network segments quickly and easily,

rapid reconfiguration of the network topology (e.g. in case of failure),

the ability to detach network segments and connect to other parties with retained network consistency,

rapid and secure automated interconnection of network segments,


Peter Johnsson IT-Konsult AB (incl. Pedalkon and IP Solutions), Sweden,

Forsvarets forskningsinstitutt (FFI), Norway,

Fraunhofer-Institut für Kommunikation, Informationsverarbeitung und Ergonomie, (FKIE), Germany,

NATO Communication and Information (NCI) Agency.

5.3 Connection Oriented Transport Service

The need for connection-oriented transport is a consequence of the fact that some communication services require an assured bandwidth to

provide high-quality communication services,

ensure priority calls have precedence,

ensure priority calls are protected against effects of network congestion.

The TACOMS+ approach to development of a CO communications services framework was to achieve three major objectives:

leave the provision of CO transport entirely under the responsibility of the IP layer,

enhance CO routing to better leverage network resources,

establish a clear separation between functions and equipment in charge of application-level aspects on the one hand, and functions and equipment in charge of IP transport on the other. The former set of functions and equipment is referred to as the Information Domain (ID), the latter as the Network Domain (ND).

A major benefit of performing connection set-up, reservation and tear-down at the IP level instead of the media level is that CO transport becomes generic and can be provided not only to media traffic, but to any traffic/service/application which requires resource assurance.

The TACOMS+ approach can be regarded as a first step to the implementation of a form of Protected Core Networking (PCN) to

deliver added functionality that maximises the use of network resources in favour of priority users,

demonstrate a configurable automatic Connection Admission Control and Multi Level Prioritisation and Pre-emption capability that is adaptable to a variety of mission types, pre-emption policies and user populations.


Cogisys, France


Fraunhofer-Institut für Kommunikation, Informationsverarbeitung und Ergonomie, (FKIE), Germany


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Peter Johnsson IT-Konsult AB (incl. Pedalkon and IP Solutions), Sweden


Applica AS, Norway

5.4 Supporting the Project

TACOMS+ Security Solutions

During the initial project stage the NCI Agency conducted a review of the federated networking security architecture requirements and previous related work. The study helped to identify and recommend the capabilities, principles and approach that should be followed for the design and implementation of the TACOMS+ interoperability solutions.

Enterprise Architecture and Facilitation

The Försvarets Materielverk (FMV) and Front End, Sweden, provided specialist services to support the development of the TACOMS+ Enterprise Architecture model and to facilitate discussion, workshops and development between the multinational technical partners of the TACOMS+ Working Group and supplier teams.

6. TACOMS+ Products

TACOMS+ capabilities and services are predominantly network layer services, which are used to facilitate and deliver connectionless and connection-oriented IP transport services for the users of the TACOMS+ Federated Core (FC).

However, TACOMS+ also has network support services that can be used as user facing services – e.g. Domain Name Service and Network Time Service, and in addition to this, TACOMS+ has defined standard for the Audio Based Communication Service with a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) based media profile.

These services form a set of TACOMS+ capabilities that are architecturally captured within TACOMS+ Concept and Architecture and are described in technical detail within suite of technical specification documents. These can be found in the TACOMS+ Enterprise Architecture model at https://tacoms-ea.frontend.se/ accessed through the TACOMS+ Custodian (Appendix A).

The scope of the TACOMS+ architecture and solutions is defined in following manner

TACOMS+ builds upon the standardization of interfaces that interconnect sovereign network segments, therefore the transport services that are exchanged (not provided nor consumed) over the interfaces are defined. What happens within network segment is captured only in an abstract heuristic manner.

6.1 TACOMS+ Capability Libraries

A set of Capability Packages (CP) have been defined and encompassed in three libraries that present the TACOMS+ capabilities within the context of the NATO C3 Taxonomy (Figure 5),

1. Communication Transmission Services 2. Communications Transport Services 3. Core Enterprise Services



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Figure 5 NATO C3 Taxonomy

The CPs were developed through consolidation and integration of the individual services and functions developed within the TACOMS+ Themes. Figures 6, 7 & 8 in the following sections present the structure and inter-dependence of these CPs. Colour coding in the figures shows the TACOMS+ CPs (yellow), the TACOMS+ defined function/service (green) and other services not defined by TACOMS+ (blue) but required to build the TACOMS+ capability. The figures also show the interdependencies between CPs.

6.1.1 Communication Transmission Services library

The services and functions that deliver these CPs were developed within Generic IOP Bearers Theme. The work has overlaps with the Connectionless Transport Service Theme and during the development some efforts were combined across individual areas.

The capabilities are focussed on

delivering extended operational relevance of the TACOMS+ standardised Interoperability Point (IOP),

overcoming issues with communications at distance such as varying bearer capabilities and bandwidth constraints,

defining a common framework for the integration of generic bearer capabilities in the network elements,

defining a set of interoperability recommendations to accommodate generic bearers.

TACOMS+ Solution Space


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These CPs are intended to provide cross layer integration capability between different links and radio network capabilities with a federated IP layer. They are the first step towards seamless integration of heterogeneous networks into a coalition network on the top.

These capabilities provide an adaptation layer between logical IP network and physical networks building a generic interface for the IP service and thus masking the different aspects and characteristics of the actual bearers.

For the Communications Transmission Services library, TACOMS+ has defined and delivered the following CPs (Figure 6)

1. Key Performance Indicator Estimation Service

A method to interrogate networking environment and especially transmission service interconnecting two consecutive TACOMS+ nodes. This interrogation provides a set of parameters that describe networking / transport service behaviour in an abstract manner.

2. Key Performance Indicator Dissemination Service

Collects and disseminates the estimated KPIs to other processes and services within a TACOMS+ node, and also to other nodes within federated network domain.

3. Key Performance Indicator Mitigation Service

Provides trade-offs between parameters in attempt to deliver better overall service to the users of the network. This trade-off is based on enhancing some aspect of the communication at the expense of others.

Figure 6 TACOMS+ Communications Transmission Services Library

Required services/functions

Capability packages

KPI Estimation

KPI Measurement Function

X-Layer Communication Function

KPI Provisioning Function

KPI Dissemination Service

CL Transport

Time Synchronization

KPI EstimationService

KPI Dissemination

Horizontal Dissemination Function

Vertical Dissemination Function

KPI Estimation

Service Announcement

Mitigation Service

Service Mitigation

Bearer Mitigation Function

IP-Layer Mitigation Function

KPI Estimation

KPI Dissemination

Application Layer Mitigation Function


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6.1.2 Communication Transport Services library

The services and functions that support and deliver these CPs were developed partially within the Connectionless Transport Service Theme and partially within Connection Oriented Services Theme. Connection Oriented Transport Services are actually consumers of services defined in the Connectionless Transport Service Theme, but together they define the network layer of the TACOMS+ Federated Core.

The capabilities are focussed on

• reducing operator workload and deployment time, • providing flexible, rapid deployment regardless of network topology, • simplifying connectivity, • automating dynamic network configuration to minimise manual intervention, • providing high-quality communication services to ensure priority connections have

precedence and are protected against effects of network congestion.

For the Communications Transport Services library, TACOMS+ has defined and delivered the following CPs (Figure 7)

1. Connectionless IP Transport Service,

An enhanced version of normal IP transport. Enhancements are related to the security model, which is drawn from the Protected Core Network (PCN) Architecture; and QoS model, which is drawn from the STANAG 4711. In the PCN security model each network link has Traffic Flow Confidentiality (TFC) attributes, in the TACOMS+ solution TFC is based on IPsec which provides a basic level of TFC where the addresses of the users are hidden.

2. Auto-connectivity Service

Building a methodology to perform network and service configurations without manual processes. Automation of network attach and detach procedures eliminates human errors, which in many cases open attack vectors towards infrastructure. Auto-connectivity is based on the Certificate Services and their use in authentication of connecting parties as a part of IPSec procedures.

3. Connection-oriented IP Transport Service

Augmenting the connectionless IP Transport Service with two capabilities: (1) Reservations of resources from the STANAG 4711 QoS Bearers (Service Classes), and (2) Traffic Engineering based on Filter Based Forwarding.


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Figure 7 TACOMS+ Communications Transport Services library

6.1.3 Core Enterprise Services Library

The services and functions that support and deliver these CPs were developed jointly within the Connectionless Transport Service and Connection Oriented Transport Service Themes.

Together they define infrastructure and business support services that form the foundation for command and control. They are partially targeted to support network infrastructure, and partially to help auto-configuration of services, and then as third pure media communication service.

For the Core Enterprise Services library, TACOMS+ has defined the following CPs (Figure 8)

1. Audio-based Communication Service

A voice media service that combine standard industrial signalling infrastructure (Session Initiation Protocol - SIP) with military requirements such as priority calls and pre-emption capability.

2. Service Announcement Service

To build an overlay for exchanging service configuration and service instantiation data. Service Announcement uses BGP routing protocol with codebook that converts the service dependent configuration information to the conveyer (IPv6 NLRI information).

3. Time Synchronization Service

To build a synchronization hierarchy within the mission network, and thus allows applications that depend on correct phasing of the time information to operate within the infrastructure

4. Name Resolution Service


Capability packages

CL transport

RoutingFunction

AuthenticationFunction

AddressPlan

Auto-connectivity

Service

PKIFunction

TimeService

CL ForwardingService

Auto-connectivity

Border ProtectionFunction

CL transport

CO transport

CO RoutingFunction

Signaling Function

Resource Reservation Function

CL Transport

KPI Estimation

CO ForwardingService


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Based on normal DNS structure, with modified handling of Root – Zone. TACOMS+ Name Resolution Service is based on flat root delegation i.e. each Top Level Domain contains direct pointing to the origin of the domain aka nation or entity that is authority of the domain.

Figure 8 TACOMS+ Core Enterprise Services library

6.2 TACOMS+ Enterprise Architecture Model in the NATO C3 Taxonomy

TACOMS+ capabilities and services are mapped into the NATO C3 Taxonomy based on their respective approaches to describe enterprise architecture and services2. Due to the new capabilities and approaches within communications services, not all TACOMS+ services and capabilities have a clear mapping point and may indicate a need to add further services to the NATO C3 Taxonomy.

The TACOMS+ services architecture is a solution architecture from the perspective of the NATO C3 Taxonomy, which has the viewpoint only of the high-level services framework. The Taxonomy services are organised in hierarchical formation and describes the service that is provided by a layer to the user of the layer above, i.e. Communication Services are used by Infrastructure Services which, in turn, are used by Core Services.

The TACOMS+ service architecture is more detailed than the NATO C3 Taxonomy and therefore, at present some TACOMS+ technical services cannot be mapped without making changes to C3 Taxonomy.

2 This mapping can be found in the TACOMS+ Enterprise Architecture Model at https://tacoms-ea.frontend.se/


Capability packages

Name resolutionService

TimeService

Name resolution

Time sync

ServiceAnnouncement

Service

ServiceAnnouncement

Auto-connectivityService

Announcement

TimeService

CL transport CL transportCL transport

Audio-based Communication Service

Media

Resource Reservation Function

Signaling Function

Dynamic Routing Function

CL transport

Service Announcement

CO transport




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Despite of differences between TACOMS+ and NATO C3 Taxonomy elements, the Taxonomy technical service components are used as the framework for the TACOMS+ solution architecture.

6.3 TACOMS+ Reference Implementation

TACOMS+ Reference Implementation (RI) is a working example of TACOMS+ interoperability solutions and comprises of a federation of compliant nodes of Netherlands, Norway and Sweden created using the substantial body of knowledge and experience generated by TACOMS+ project.

TACOMS+ Reference Implementation delivers a number of key benefits, including:

the creation of a true TACOMS+ Federated Network,

an opportunity to test and demonstrate real National Implementations and to include Military hardware and applications,

an environment to conduct multi-lateral tests and exercises as and when required via the federated RI network (not limited to fixed exercise dates and locations),

Furthermore, the RI offers opportunities and capabilities to be used as a development environment for further research and to support nations in the de-risking of their own implementation of the TACOMS+ products – especially those incorporated into FMN.

In addition to these benefits, the RI can be used in NATO exercises to show the maturity level and capabilities through the services developed by TACOMS+.

Given the nature of the TACOMS+ solutions, a single “gold standard” or generalized Reference Implementation, as originally perceived, is not feasible. Therefore unconditional Verification and Validation of National Implementations is not achievable against a TACOMS+ RI. However, the current RI approach is capable of de-risking National Implementations and support the development of further capabilities.

The RI has been used in the TACOMS+ project development phase to support comprehensive experimentation, prototyping and testing. It can be further used to help reduce technical risks by providing support to national implementations and experimentation. The equipment list of the RI is given in Appendix B. It remains available for use by any nations and to support and test further enhancements of the TACOMS+ products until end of 2018.

Requests to use the RI shall be addressed through the NATO C3B Networking and Security Capability Team, via the TACOMS+ Change Control Board Task Manager (Appendix A).

7. Supporting FMN

The NATO Federated Mission Networking (FMN) initiative emerged as an enduring successor of the Afghanistan Mission Network (AMN) at the beginning of the TACOMS+ project. The FMN Concept (Reference C) and Implementation plan (Reference D) describe the mission network objectives and principles and present a vision of incremental capability development based on evolutionary Milestones and spirals.

The TACOMS+ PSG recognised both the importance of the FMN initiative to NATO and Partner Nations and the opportunity to leverage the TACOMS+ expertise, investment and outputs into the wider NATO environment. From the outset the PSG directed the project to support the FMN initiative. As such, the development of TACOMS+ interoperability solutions has been strongly aligned with and influenced by the FMN concept.

The project team delivered the first fully tested TACOMS+ products to FMN in 2013 to support the initial FMN development. These basic interoperability specifications were implemented and successfully demonstrated during Combined Endeavour 2013.


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The project team continued to focus on delivering extended TACOMS+ interoperability solutions and worked closely with the FMN Capability Planning Working Group (CPWG) to help realise the more ambitious and challenging requirements associated with FMN Milestone 2 and beyond.

In 2015 the TACOMS+ interoperability solutions were delivered to the FMN CPWG and are now fully incorporated into FMN Service instructions (References E & F).

These TACOMS+ products have been implemented and tested in the FMN Focus Area during CWIX 2015, under a TACOMS+ lead, and provide a key foundation for FMN interoperability.

Close cooperation between the TACOMS+ and the FMN community has ensured that the knowledge and project outputs continue to deliver benefits and support to FMN capability development through the FMN CPWG structure. TACOMS+ project representatives have been instrumental in the development of the FMN Spiral Specifications Roadmap (Reference G) which describes the vision and target for the incremental development of the FMN capability framework over time. The TACOMS+ products and capability packages, described previously, deliver a foundation for the FMN Communication Services Technology Roadmap (Figure 9), specifying the major technology areas, delivered by the TACOMS+ project, that will contribute to the evolution of the FMN capabilities.

Figure 9 FMN Communication Services Technology Roadmap


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8. Finances

The TACOMS+ Project was funded and supported by the participating nations. During the initial TACOMS+ MOU period (Jan 2012 to Dec 2014) 4,200,000 Euro was available to cover Host Services (funding support from the NCI Agency), IPO Services, (including full-time administration support, travel and operating expenses) and Technical Services (provided by the NCI Agency and external contractors).

During TACOMS+ MOU Amendment 1 (Jan 2015 to Mar 2016), an additional 675,000 Euro was requested to cover the extended 15 month period. At the beginning of 2016 the IPO proposed to reduce this funding to 540,000 Euro due to a forecast underspend. The PSG agreed to cancel the second payment of 37,500 Euro per nation requested under the MOU Amd. 1.

The total funding available to the TACOMS+ project was 4,740,000 Euro. The NCI Agency Finance department will deliver the final Financial Statement to participating nations after project closure, however, the following is a summary of the estimated spend at the date of this report.

Host Agency Services 506,000 Euro

IPO Services 681,952 Euro

Technical Services 3,224,319 Euro

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Estimated Total 4,412,271 Euro

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The PSG agreed that any residual funding remaining after project closure would be used to continue to support the availability and maintenance of the TACOMS+ products, the Enterprise Architecture Model and the Reference Implementation.

9. Next Steps

A comprehensive library of TACOMS+ products, supporting documentation, knowledge and expertise are available to establish and support interoperability within a federated networking environment. Implementation examples (i.e. TACOMS+ Reference Implementation) are available to help nations implement the TACOMS+ products into their own national systems providing an opportunity for supported development, implementation risk reduction (e.g. for incorporating TACOMS+ products in FMN) and multinational validation and verification exercises.

In line with the NATO C3B endorsement, TACOMS+ products have been adopted as a key interoperability enabler for FMN Communications services and subject matter experts from the TACOMS+ nations are supporting the development of the FMN capability roadmap and spiral specifications through the FMN Capability Planning Working Group (CPWG) and Tide Sprint events.

After project closure, it will still be necessary to ensure that the TACOMS+ products, including the Reference Implementation, remain available for use by the wider community, especially by the FMN Affiliates through the FMN CPWG. It is expected that the products and technical specifications will need to be maintained in line with requirements arising from evolving operational need, FMN capability development and changes in technology.


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To achieve this, close and continued cooperation between the project sponsors (TACOMS+ nations), NATO C3B CaP1, ACT, FMN CPWG, NATO HQ C3 Staff and national contributions to the Tide Sprint Communications Track must remain in place.

Ideally, as the longer term steady state, availability and maintenance would be formally and managed through a structure similar to the NATO Multinational C3 Standards Communication and Information Partnership. However, this will take time to establish and will require significant effort and commitment from interested nations, NATO and NCI Agency to drive it forward. The burden may be eased if similar communications and interoperability “standards” could be incorporated into the partnership package.

In the short term, however, it is vital to safeguard the cooperation between the TACOMS+ participants and the FMN spiral development through ongoing delivery of technical products and support. Equally, it is important that the resources, expertise, time and effort invested by the TACOMS+ participating nations continues to be recognised as delivering benefits to the wider communities. The project team has successfully transitioned solutions into FMN but it is important that the TACOMS+ nations take ownership of the project outputs and continue to champion their use in multinational interoperability initiatives.

To achieve this short term objective, the Försvarets Materielverk (FMV), Sweden will take the role of interim custodian and be responsible for coordinating and managing

the TACOMS+ information repository (i.e. the Enterprise Architecture model developed by Front End)

maintenance and updates the products and technical specifications

configuration control of the products and technical specifications

formal release of products to customer and stakeholders

A TACOMS+ syndicate of SMEs will be established within the NATO C3B CaP 1 N&S CaT to act as a Change Control Board (CCB). The CCB will be responsible for technical management, review and approval of any change proposals and updates to the TACOMS+ products. Mr Gerard Elzinga, Principal Engineer Communications Services, Spectrum, C3 Infrastructure Branch, NATO Headquarters C3 Staff and current Chair N&S CAT will act as Task Manager, initiating and coordinating maintenance tasks and controlling any residual funding remaining after the TACOMS+ project closure.

The TACOMS+ Reference Implementation will be located at and hosted by the Aalto University/School of Electrical Engineering, Finland where it will be available for use by any nations wishing to implement, test and verify the TACOMS+ products (whether standalone or as components of FMN). Requests for use shall be addressed through the NATO C3B Networking and Security Capability Team, via the TACOMS+ Change Control Board Task Manager (Appendix A). Aalto University will be responsible for coordinating availability and access to the Reference Implementation.

All the key post-TACOMS+ points of contact are given in Appendix A.

10. Conclusion

The TACOMS+ Project has successfully delivered a comprehensive suite of interoperability solutions that can be used to create a foundation for federated networking between coalition partners. They provide bearer independent, cost-effective solutions that establish dynamic, agile and flexible federated mission networks whilst minimising impact on national communications systems and offering significant reductions in deployment and configuration time and operator workload.

The TACOMS+ solutions utilise open standards and industry best practice to define the interoperability interfaces. The capability packages, which can be adapted to encompass evolving requirements and technological developments, provide a solid base for any future


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CIS initiatives where multinational interoperability, based on agreed standardisation, is required.

A strong link to the FMN community, through the IPO and those national SMEs operating across both TACOMS and FMN, has ensured that the project outputs satisfy the capability development requirements of the wider FMN enterprise. TACOMS+ products have been included in FMN and the more advanced TACOMS+ components and capabilities will continue to support the evolution of the FMN capability roadmap and the future spiral specifications.

Multinational collaboration across the entire project team has been the key to success. It has provided a common understanding between nations, supported the sharing of knowledge and expertise and ensured a truly multinational approach was taken to delivering commonly agreed interoperability solutions. This close cooperation, coupled with a rapid cycle of development, review, implementation, test and feedback, has significantly increased the pace of progress and the maturity and quality of the project outputs.

The real-world implementation and testing of mature interoperability solutions by the CIT clearly demonstrates the feasibility of the TACOMS+ capabilities. Using the same implementations, the project has been able to participate and support multinational exercises (e.g. Combined Endeavour and) CWIX and demonstrations (e.g. SCIP secure voice over a TACOMS+ federated network). These external engagement opportunities have further propagated knowledge and awareness of the TACOMS+ features and benefits into the wider NATO and national communities.


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11. Acknowledgements

The TACOMS+ Project Steering Group and International Project Office wish to acknowledge the support given by:

the representatives of the participating nations

The Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Finland

The Minister of Defence and Veterans Affairs of the French Republic

The Ministry of Defence of the Federal Republic of Germany

The Ministry of Defence of the Italian Republic

The Minister of Defence of the Kingdom of the Netherlands

The Ministry of Defence of the Kingdom of Norway

The Minister of Defence of the Kingdom of Spain

The Government of the Kingdom of Sweden and the Swedish Armed Forces

The Ministry of National Defence of the Republic of Turkey

The Secretary of State for Defence of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

the technical contributions from


Cogisys, France

Michel Bourgois Consultant, France

Fraunhofer-Institut für Kommunikation, Informationsverarbeitung und Ergonomie, (FKIE), Germany


Applica, Norway

Forsvarets forskningsinstitutt (FFI), Norway

Peter Johnsson IT-Konsult AB, Sweden

IP Solutions, Sweden

Peldakon, Sweden

Försvarets Materielverk, Sweden

Front End, Sweden

and the continued support from

NATO Communications and Information (NCI) Agency as the Host Agency

NATO C3 Board and sub-structure

NATO HQ C3 Staff

Allied Command Transformation

FMN Capability Planning Working Group


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APPENDIX A. Post-TACOMS+ Points of Contact

TACOMS+ Project Manager (Feb 2012 to Apr 2016)

Mr. Richard Allen

Defence Science and Technology Laboratory Salisbury United Kingdom SP4 0JQ Tel. +44 30 6770 6164 +44 1980 957 536 E-mail: [email protected]

TACOMS+ Custodian

Mr. Ulrik Nylander AL Led Integration FMV – Försvarets Materielverk Enköping Swedish Defence Material Administration Garagevägen 1 SE-745 25 Enköping Sweden Tel: +46 8 782 65 53 E-mail: [email protected]

TACOMS+ Enterprise Architecture Model


TACOMS+ Change Control Board Task Manager

Mr. Gerard Elzinga Principal Engineer Communications Services Spectrum, C3 Infrastructure Branch, NATO Headquarters C3 Staff Boulevard Leopold III BE-1110, Brussels Belgium Tel. +32 2 707 5515 E-mail: [email protected]

TACOMS+ Reference Implementation

Mr. Marko Luoma

mailto:[email protected]





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Senior Research Scientist

Aalto University / School of Electrical Engineering

Department of Communications and Networking

PO Box 13000

00076 Aalto

Finland

Tel: +358 50 511 2676

E-mail: [email protected]



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APPENDIX B. TACOMS+ Reference Implementation equipment list

Subject : Equipment for TACOMS - Brussels

I.Nu. Product Code Product Description Qty.

Cables

Hardware - cables

1

- Cables and Power Adapters

A3L980B01M-BLKS

Belkin High Performance - Patch cable - 1 m - UTP - CAT 6

A3L980B03M-BLKS


A3L980B05M-BLKS


A3L980B10M-S Belkin High Performance - Patch cable - 10 m - UTP - CAT 6

85146 C2G - Patch cable - LC multi-mode (M) - LC multi-mode (M) - 3 m - fibre optic

85147 C2G - Patch cable - LC multi-mode (M) - LC multi-mode (M) - 5 m - fibre optic

Server

2

687567-425 DL380eRGen8 Xeon E5-2407 (2.2GHz-10MB/DDR3-1066 4C) 1P 1x4GB (RDIMM-LP) 4x1GbE SA B320i-512 MB FBWC 8 LFF HP (1X500GB) 1x460W(94+) (TopValue)

1

647893-TV1 TOP VALUE/ 4GB (1x4GB) Registered DDR3 PC3L-10600 low power single rank Memory Kit (Gen8) 1

647897-B21 8GB (1x8GB) Registered DDR3 PC3L-10600 low power dual rank Memory Kit 1

658079-B21 2TB LFF 6G SATA 7.2K rpm HotPlug DP SC MDL hard drive (3.5") 2

657750-TV1 TOP VALUE/ 1TB LFF 6G SATA 7.2K rpm HotPlug DP SC MDL hard drive (3.5") (Gen8) 1

Visioconferencing system

3 17052290 Polycom Real Presence Group 500-720P VC set 1

4 17051324 Polycom VRMX1505HDR RMX 1500 IP 1

Subject : Equipment for TACOMS - Netherlands

Product Code Product Description Qty.

Cisco equipment

5 CISCO2951/K9

Cisco 2951 w/3 GE,4 EHWIC,3 DSP,2 SM,256MB CF,512MB DRAM,IPB

1

6 C2951-CME-SRST/K9 2951 UC Bundle w/ PVDM3-32,FL-CME-SRST-25, UC License PAK

1

7 CISCO2951-SEC/K9 Cisco 2951 Security Bundle w/SEC license PAK 1


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EHWIC-D-8ESG-P Eight port 10/100/1000 Ethernet switch interface card w/ PoE 1

PWR-2921-51-POE Cisco 2921/2951 AC Power Supply with Power Over Ethernet

1

8 CP-7962G= Cisco UC Phone 7962, spare 2

Laptop

9

210-40548 Dell Precision M6800 (i7 CPU, 16 GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 17" 1920x1080 Screen, DVD-RW, GB Ethernet, W7 Pro EN, EN QWERTY Keyboard)

1

USB21000S2 USB 2.0 to Gigabit Ethernet NIC Network Adapter

1

Subject : Equipment for TACOMS - Norway


Cisco equipment

10

WS-C3750X-12S-S Catalyst 3750X 12 Port GE SFP IP Base 1

GLC-SX-MMD= 1000BASE-SX SFP transceiver module, MMF, 850nm, DOM

7

GLC-T= 1000BASE-T SFP 5

11 CISCO2921/K9


1

12 WS-C3560V2-48PS-S Catalyst 3560V2 48 10/100 PoE + 4 SFP + IPB (Standard) Image 1

13 CISCO2921/K9


1

14 CP-7962G= Cisco UC Phone 7962, spare 2

Server

15

470065-701 DL380pRGen8 Xeon E5-2620 (2.0GHz-15MB/DDR3-1333 6C) 1P 2x4GB (RDIMM-LP) 4x1GbE SA P420i-512MB FBWC 8SFF SAS/SATA DVD-RW 1x460W(92) RFAN (TopValue)

1

647897-B21

8GB (1x8GB) Registered DDR3 PC3L-10600 low power dual rank Memory Kit

4

652589-B21

900GB SFF 6G SAS 10K rpm HotPlug DP SC ENT hard drive (2.5") 4

615732-B21

HP Ethernet 1Gb 2P 332T Adptr 1

652232-B21

HP 12.7mm SATA DVD ROM Jb Kit 1

Laptop

16

210-40548 Dell Precision M6800 (i7 CPU, 16 GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 17" 1920x1080 Screen, DVD-RW, GB Ethernet, W7 Pro EN, EN QWERTY Keyboard)

1


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Subject : Equipment for TACOMS - Sweden


Cisco equipment

17 SRW2024-K9-EU SG300-28 28-port Gigabit Managed Switch 1

18 SPA504G 4 Line IP Phone With Display, PoE and PC Port 1

19 CISCO892F-K9 Cisco 892 GigaE SecRouter with SFP 4

Server

20 646901-421

DL360pR08 Xeon E5-2630 (2.3GHz-15MB/DDR3-1333 6C) 1P 4x4GB (RDIMM) 4x1GbE SA P420i-1GB FBWC 8SFF SAS/SATA 1x460W(94+) RFAN (Base)

1

652583-B21

600GB SFF 6G SAS 10K rpm HotPlug DP SC ENT hard drive (2.5") 2

21

644706-425 HP DL120 G7 E3-1220 SATA EU Svr/TV 1

458928-TV1

TOP VALUE/ 500GB 3G SATA 7.2K rpm LFF hotplug MDL hard drive (3.5") (G6/G7)

2

22 D4x2-C3517V-H500 CompuLab Intense PC 2

Laptop

23

C5A57EA#UUG HP ProBook 6570b - Core i5 3210M / 2.5 GHz - Windows 8 Pro / Windows 7 Professional 64-bit downgrade - 4 GB RAM - 500 GB HDD - DVD SuperMulti - 15.6" HD anti-glare wide 1366 x 768 / HD - Intel HD Graphics 4000 - Bluetooth 4.0 EDR - Tungsten - keyboard: Belgium AZERTY

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