Laboratory-based end-to-end network System of Systems Integration, design and risk reduction: Critical activity for System of Systems Integration Directorate and the Army

The Army is currently using the Network Integration Events (NIE) to test emerging technologies in a relevant military environment with soldiers operating the equipment. This process strengthens the design and deployment process as network integrators are able to detect and diagnose problems and equipment glitches before they affect deployed troops. However, past events have demonstrated that a large number of network problems experienced during the NIE are time consuming to troubleshoot and require expert intervention from engineers in the field. To address this, the System of Systems Integration Directorate has begun the process of Laboratory Based Risk Reduction (LBRR) that performs network integration, design and automated analysis in a laboratory environment prior to each NIE. This allows prescreening of the NIE integrated network enabling the early discovery of problems related to integration, debugging of network anomalies by subject matter experts in a controlled environment, early detection of incorrect configurations and up-front analysis of network performance. LBRR uses capabilities that include 1) Thread-based lab testing, 2) Unified Offered Load, 3) Communication Effects through waveform emulation and 4) Automated performance analysis. To date, this LBRR approach has been used in advance of NIE 12.2 and the results are encouraging. The lab-based integration exercise helped in discovering numerous technical problems related to integrating the highly heterogeneous network many of them of a critical nature that would have caused extensive delays during the NIE. With LBRR, the vendors and Army programs were able to provide fixes or workarounds in time for NIE. For future NIEs, it is anticipated that the full LBRR capability set will provide more sophisticated analysis and results.