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Technical Program
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Fast Connectivity for Coalition Agents Program (Fast C2AP)
Program Manager: Dr. Kendra E. Moore
Challenges:
Changing circumstances have created a barrier to effective deployment of agent-based technologies. Two principal developments in software user requirements will be addressed to facilitate the widespread adoption of agent-based technologies by OSD and the military services.
The first development is the recent maturation of web services (WS) technologies and the increasing DoD use of these services. Most notable are the "Web-enabled Navy" initiative and DISA’s Network Centric Enterprise Services, which are indicative of the growing reliance on third-party data and information servicing via non-DoD systems. Mission data and information are being provided as subscription-based services without the system or application being provided to the government. Current agent-based technologies cannot support WS because they register agents, objects, and services in a look-up service (LUS format) and require direct access to the application with which they are working. WS are registered through Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI), which does not allow direct access to applications. FASTC2AP is addressing this problem by building a bridge between these two registration mechanisms that will enable more flexible agent deployment and the navigation of multiple security schemes.
The second development is the increased popularity of collaboration tools that can be implemented by end users. The positive aspect of this development is that junior military users are now able to install, configure, and execute software tools themselves, due to the proliferation of easy-to-use software "wizards." The negative aspects are that the tools, such as chat programs that are being used to share data and information directly from one user to another, do not take advantage of the speed and accuracy of agent-based technologies and they provide no means to document the information transactions. FASTC2AP is tackling this issue by adding end-user configuration capability (similar to the current capability for system administrators) to current agent-based tools and simplify the development of end-user-designed agents.
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