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GCN Home > 11/23/04 web stories

DOD conducts real-time Web services test

By Susan M. Menke, GCN Staff

As the Defense Department works its way through tests of its nine planned core Network-Centric Enterprise Services, the Joint Forces Command, Strategic Command and Defense Information Systems Agency this month tried out Web services in simulated combat.

DOD wants the core services to task, post, process, use, store, manage and protect information resources on demand throughout the Global Information Grid. Those services include applications, collaboration, discovery, enterprise service management, mediation, messaging, security, storage and user assistance.

“What looks like a unified process on the front end is really a series of services coming from different providers," said Edwin A. Shuman, the pilot’s coordinator.

He said the participants specifically tested Web services’ data posting, storage and access to real-time information. It was a weeklong “try before you buy” event to see whether a Web services architecture could improve warfighters’ situational awareness, Shuman said.

The testers were organized as a standing joint force headquarters group of planners and information specialists. Their job was to keep combatant commanders up to date about trouble spots to aid rapid, ad hoc decision-making.

More news on related topics: Defense IT, IT in Action



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