A Look at Internet Gateway Functional Requirements for Tactical Distributed C3 Systems

This paper investigates the application of internet gateway technology to distributed C³ systems. Internet gateway technology is in an infancy stage of development and currently applied to benign government and industry internetworking environments. This paper postulates a generic distributed C³ system and describes the basic need for internet gateways in such a system to achieve interoperability. The relationship of the distributed C³ system to an SDI networking environment is presented. The functional and operational requirements of internet gateways in a distributed C³ system are described. A summary description of the current state-of-the-art in internet gateway technology and standards is also presented. Finally, a recommendation is made for further research into the specification and demonstration of internet gateways in distributed C³ environments. The sponsor of this research work is the Defense Communications Agency, Center for Command and Control, and Communications.