1. Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization
Rick Severinghaus
Chair
SISO Executive Committee

2. SISO: 10+ years – and counting!
EuroSIW 2007
SISO: 10+ years – and counting!

3. Workshop Theme
New Challenges for Interoperable Simulation in the areas of
Transportation, Virtual Prototyping,
and
Homeland/Societal Security.

4. Outline Sponsors “Orientation” The SISO organization
Reaching for Interoperability
The Future of M&S
A Way Ahead
SISO Vision
Future SISO Events

5. SISO Sponsors

6. From the domain of spoken & written languages and dictionaries
“Orientation”
From the domain of spoken & written languages and dictionaries
“The task of classifying all the words of language, or what's the same thing, all the ideas that seek expression, is the most stupendous of logical tasks. Anybody but the most accomplished logician must break down in it utterly; and even for the strongest man, it is the severest possible tax on the logical equipment and faculty.”
if you buy my argument about defining sets of 'communities of practice', then this is an elegant quote summing up the difficulty of building supporting ontology and taxonomy to guide and constrain a defined community
Charles Sanders Peirce,
letter to editor B. E. Smith of the Century Dictionary

7. “Orientation”
Translated to the domain of M&S and the development of interoperability standards….
“The task of classifying all the words of M&S, or what's the same thing, all the ideas that Conceptual Models seek to express, is the most stupendous of logical tasks. Anybody but the most accomplished simulationist must break down in it utterly; and even for the strongest M&S guru, it is the severest possible tax on the logical equipment and faculty.”
if you buy my argument about defining sets of 'communities of practice', then this is an elegant quote summing up the difficulty of building supporting ontology and taxonomy to guide and constrain the defined community
“NOT” Charles Sanders Peirce,
letter to editor B. E. Smith of the Century Dictionary …
But a modification to make a point!

8. SISO – Who are we? Non-profit, chartered in U.S. as 501(c)(3), 1996.
Sponsors: about 2 dozen – multi-national group from industry, government and academia
Membership: about ~ 5000 folks monitor our public “discussion groups” on the Web
Activities: 3 SIWs and 1 BRIMS per year. Two SIWs in US, one in Europe. Yearly attendance: 1000 to 1500
Core volunteer group of about 120 to 150 people with years of M&S experience, some going back to earliest days of the Internet
Standards: 4 SISO standards and 4 SISO-sponsored standards PDGs, 4 PSGs, 8 SGs, 3 SSGs
Our senior committees: 32 people from 5 countries (Canada, France, Sweden, UK, US) and multiple government agencies (US: MSCO, JFCOM; NATO)
5 User Forums, 11 Specialty Areas.
8 Study Groups
- 6 under SAC
- 1 under EXCOM/SAC (LVC)
- 1 under CC (Message-SIM)
3 Standing Study Groups
- 1 under SAC
- 1 under EXCOM/SAC (Australia)
- 1 under EXCOM (Econ)
4 Product Support Groups
- DIS, BOM, TDL, EDRS

9. What is SISO’s Role? Be ‘the’ Open Community Forum to:
Identify standards that enable interoperability and reuse
Develop, review, accredit, and archive standards
Get community buy-in, grass-roots support for, and evangelize standards
Be the “nexus” for related and complementary simulation products
Provide a stable, open interface for COTS product vendors to trust & develop M&S standards
Collect and distribute community Feedback to and from industry, academia, and government across the International M&S community

10. A Brief History of SISO
Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) Workshops began, to generate open standards for Army Combined Arms Tactical Trainer (CCTT) procurement
1993, 1995, DIS Standards (IEEE 1278) approved
1996/7 - DIS Workshops disbanded, SISO incorporated as 501(c)(3) in 1996; semi-annual Workshops (SIWs) continue
First SISO standard (RPR FOM) promulgated
SISO develops HLA standards (IEEE 1516)
- Annual SISO European Workshops begin
IEEE Computer Society recognizes SISO as sponsor committee
NATO Modeling & Simulation Group (NMSG) recognizes SISO
Note: NATO has completed review (as of May 2007) of a Technical Cooperation Agreement (TCA) between SISO and NATO. This will provide formal NATO recognition of SISO and establish the basis for ongoing cooperation.

11. Signing Ceremony for Cooperative Agreement with US DoD
SISO Liaisons
IEEE
ISO
ITEA
SCS
AFCEA
SimSummit
INCITS
ACM SIGSIM
NATO NMSG
Australian SSG
Signing Ceremony for Cooperative Agreement with US DoD
Within NATO: NMSG recognition of SISO as an accredited Standards Development Organization (SDO)
Col Jerry Glasow
Rick Severinghaus

12. SISO and SISO Sponsored Standards
SISO-STD-001
Real Time Platform Reference FOM
SISO-STD-002
Link 16 Simulation (Approved 10 Jul 06)
SISO-STD-003
BOM Template Specification (Approved 8 May 06)
SISO-STD-004
Dynamic Link Compatible (DLC) HLA API
IEEE 1278 series
Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS)
IEEE 1516 series
High Level Architecture (HLA)
ISO/IEC 18025:2005
Environmental Data Coding Specification (EDCS)
(Finalized Jun 05)
ISO/IEC 18026:2006(E)
Spatial Reference Model (SRM)
(Finalized Jun 06)

13. SISO Activities 2006/2007
Participation in/Outreach to other organizations and activities
NATO Modeling & Simulation Group
2nd Annual Congressional M&S Leadership Summit
SimSummit
The Society For Modeling And Simulation (MoSiS), Sweden
Medicine Meets Virtual Reality
Expansion of Space Forum activity
Participation in SimTecT 2007 Brisbane, Australia
Develop and expand activity in the “Economics of M&S” Forum.
This slide presented at the Spring 07 SIW in Norfolk.

14. 2nd Annual U.S. M&S Leadership Summit
February 2007
In cooperation with the U.S. Congressional Modeling and Simulation (M&S) Caucus, Congressman J. Randy Forbes, Chair
All day session addressing M&S issues of interest on a national scale
SISO well represented, participating as discussion leads, and as team leaders for collection and summarizing issues for the Caucus membership

15. Reaching for Interoperability
Vital if the M&S world is to leverage earlier work. Strong standards are a must, and also a forum in which to develop them. SISO exists to provide such a Forum. Without one, we are doomed to “re-invent the wheel” - and never mature past our infantile stage.
Everything SISO has done to date addresses less than 5% of the necessary solution space.
SISO and Standards development are the enemies of the Forces of the “Stovepipe”!
“ SISO needs to be holding – and pulling on – the rope - from the upper end!
and, with the analogy of having many communities of practice for building interoperabiity, there needs to be a number of ropes! .. With rope “bridges” among them in some cases.
Not a plateau – the objectives keep moving

16. The Future of M&S Current State of M&S - as a marketplace
Current State of M&S – as a discipline
Issues in M&S
Standardization Problem Space
LVC Interoperability Study
A Way Ahead

17. Current State of M&S – as a marketplace
Fragmented marketplace for both skilled M&S professionals and M&S products
Little consensus among M&S stakeholders about their goals
Recurring quality and productivity issues
Unclear career opportunities, leading to a high rate of practitioner exodus
Sparse (and untracked) research funding for M&S technology development
Difficulty separating core M&S technology from its applications.
Slide intended to provide pavement on which to walk discussion of currrent M&S broad issues.

18. Current State of M&S – as a discipline
Strong ethics
Statements adopted by many professional organizations
Cooperative professional organizations
Fledging efforts to increase cooperation – joint conferences, SimSummit membership
Well defined Body of Knowledge
Program initiated – at least within US
Common education programs
Programs being developed
Professional certification programs
A US program in place, acceptance issues
Available employment statistics
Effort under weigh, arguments need better support
Defined research agenda
No program in place or planned.
More detail on where M&S standards as a discipline – created from a US perspective, but its fair to point out this applies internationally. AND, makes the point, that we in SISO do not have an equivalent status slide to describe any other community within/across the international community.

19. Key issue: Finding the right ‘mix’ of standards
ISSUES in M&S
- architectures/frameworks
- communications
- databases
- networks
- interfaces
vs.
Stovepipe developments
- Ontologies & Taxonomies
Semantic interoperability
Substantive interoperability
intellectual property protection
- cultural adjustment and buy-in
SISO needs to take a proactive role in setting agendas for making progress in some/all of these areas. To date, this has not been the case, except in certain constrained areas.
regards ‘sunset’ line: ‘finding the right mix of standards’ is expression currently in vogue with US DoD M&S circles.
Systems of Systems Interoperability
Key issue: Finding the right ‘mix’ of standards

20. Standardization Problem Space
Modeling Standards
Simulation Standards
Purposes of model
Level of fidelity
Boundary sets/model limits
Model applicability
Input standards
Output standards
Presentation layer standards
Security Standards
Purposes of simulation
Business “standards” & rules
Domain applicability/limits
Taxonomy
Data Dictionary Issues
Entity Ownership
Middleware
Security Standards
Technology standards
Protocols
Intellectual Property issues
Domain boundaries/standards

21. Lightweight Federates?
A US DoD Initiative – LVC Interoperability Study 06 07 08 09 10 11
TENA MW R5
TENA MW R?
TENA MW R?
Lightweight Federates?
GW A
GW B
GW D
SPP/HPC?
GW C
Grid Computing?
DIS IEEE 1278.??
DIS IEEE A
Interoperability between Live, Virtual & Constructive (LVC) assets is essential to providing the highest quality warfighter training. However, the current LVC environment in common use are not interoperable. The High Level Architecture (HLA) and Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) are most often used in the Modeling & Simulation (M&S) community for integrating virtual and constructive assets, while the Test & Training Enabling Architecture (TENA) is widely used to integrate live assets into exercises/events.
Today we use multiple protocols, gateways and object models to bring the Live Virtual and Constructive Environment together. This causes interoperability issues in bringing our federations together in one common operational environment..
Multiple architectures increase complexity, disconnects, duplication of effort, and risk.
Is the solution a common open-standards, object-based LVC architecture? I think it remains an empirical question. – a Common LVC Integrating Architecture seems a good concept to pursue, at least for US DoD, who have a ‘known’ domain or community of interest to serve. JFCOM’ study pursues a notional concept that allows for the exploration and experimentation of higher levels of interoperability between LVC systems – with the caveat, and objective, that it will serve US DoDs interests.
for the larger community that SISO represents, it is not clear that SISO’s ‘boundaries for this Study Group should align closely with the IA study. Clearly, loosely aligned and complementary are appropriate and desired, but it remains to be seen what the SISO SG will develop and produce from its efforts.
ALSP
TENA – Test & Training Enabling Architecture DIS – Distributed Interactive Simulation
HLA – High Level Architecture ALSP – Aggregate Level Simulation Protocol
RTI – Run-Time Infrastructure SPP – Scalable Parallel Processing
GW – Gateway HPC – High Performance Computing
SISO LVC SG – a parallel effort

22. A way ahead for M&S M&S communities of practice
Establish consensus on agenda
Top level Initiatives
Technology
Professional/Workforce Development
Industrial Development
Business Practices
Need leadership effort to develop, coordinate and monitor development and execution of specific actions within each of these areas.
Issues to address
Ontology and taxonomy work
Body of knowledge
Developing semantic/substantive interoperability
Business model driving the community
Professional Certification
top level outline for progress in developing agreement and buy-in for creating a some set (indeterminate number) of Communities of Practice within which to establish workable Conceptual Model(s), Ontology, and supporting taxonomies.
admittedly , does not address interfaces between and among to different, established communities of practice, but that comes later.
Manage & develop, as stakeholders and community sponsors identified and represented

23. SISO Vision – a start
Engage in the broader and more diverse M&S community we see developing
Grow the concept of M&S communities of practice
Engage community to identify enablers and obstacles to more widespread use of M&S
Begin dialogue to chart a course for addressing the larger set of issues – that go beyond interoperability
Broaden SISO activity to become a Forum to address effective use of M&S in its broadest sense

24. Our International Outlook
"The shadow of the moon falls on Earth as seen from the International Space Station, 230 miles above the planet, during a total solar eclipse at about 4:50 a.m. EST March 29, This digital photo was taken by the Expedition 12 crew, who are wrapping up a six-month mission on the ISS. Visible near the shadow are portions of Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea and the coast of Turkey.”

25. Future SISO Events 2007 Fall SIW 2008 Spring SIW
September 2007
Holiday Inn - Orlando, Florida
2008 Spring SIW
April 2008
Providence, RI

26. Thank you!
In presented brief, in this spot there is a generic photo of a SISO registration booth – taken in Toulouse, as it happens. Can send if you want it.
This photo of registration desk at our conference in Toulouse France, summer of 2006.