Developing Performance-based Requirements for Open Architecture Design

To implement the capabilities conceptualized in the national military strategy, complex, secure networks of weapon systems, intelligence platforms, and command and control mechanisms must be seamlessly integrated and maintained over time. As these capabilities are developed over time in an evolutionary manner, interoperability on the net-centric warfare (NCW) networks is essential, and both hardware and software systems must be designed in an open-svstems architecture (OA) fashion to accommodate the vast number of changes anticipated Material Developers will need to recognize the relatively immature nature of the software engineering domains and actively compensate for this immaturity. System software performance capabilities must be much more detailed than typical hardware-centric systems. Essential OA performance characteristics including maintainability, upgradability, interfaces interoperability, reliability, safety and security (MUIRSS) must be fully analyzed and clearly communicated to the software developer to ensure the DoD obtains the flexibility and longevity desired from NCW systems.