Collaborative applications at the Tactical Edge through resilient group dissemination in DTN

Civilian and wired military networks possess a rich ecosystem of applications that depend upon communication across a relatively stable and clean network. Conversely, the extremely harsh communication environment of the Tactical Edge Network (TEN) precludes all but a few highly customized network applications from working well there. Consequently, there is a severe lack of applications for information sharing and exchange in the TEN, which often leaves war-fighters without timely access to relevant information. To expand the capabilities and applications available at the tactical edge, this paper presents a group dissemination middleware service and one possible realization of it using the Bundle Protocol (DTN). We discuss how this middleware can function as the enabling technology around which many collaborative applications can work well at the tactical edge, while capitalizing on the reuse of an immense body of COTS technology.