Military Information Technology :: Collaboration Through Technology
By Chris Watson
...In 1999, Congress instructed the Department of Defense and the intelligence community to address the lack of interoperability between fielded collaboration tools. The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and the Joint Staff (JS) established a Collaboration Tiger Team (CTT), composed of members from the combatant commanders (unified commands) and agencies, with a twofold mission: develop a strategy for implementing collaboration tools throughout DoD, and define and validate a prioritized list of functional requirements for DoD collaboration tools.
The OSD/JS CTT asked the Joint Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) Battle Center (JBC) to conduct operational assessments of five DoD collaboration tools, focusing on the Joint Task Force requirements, and providing a recommendation satisfying an interim collaboration standard (18 to 24 month solution).
In September 2000, the JBC briefed the OSD/JS Collaboration Planning Tools Senior Steering Group, recommending the Collaboration Tool Suite (CTS) as the tool that best supported interim DoD collaboration user requirements. Following additional recommendations provided by the JBC in March 2001, the CTS was renamed the Defense Collaboration Tool Suite (DCTS).
Set of Open Standards
DCTS is an integrated suite of collaboration tools developed to support the mission planning process via voice and video conferencing, document and application sharing, chat, whiteboard capability and virtual workspace sharing. It is not a single product, but rather an evolving set of open standards within which standards-based products can interoperate. It is a client/server system consisting of client workstations connected via a network to a suite of centralized servers.
The client applications manage all local data processing, user interface and data export to other client-based commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software. The servers respond to internal and external client requests for data and manage and maintain the centralized data.
The current DCTS Version 2.0, Phase I, configuration is a fully featured suite of collaboration tools consisting of many parts, including:
Microsoft NetMeeting - provides Windows users with multi-point data conferencing, text chat, whiteboard and file transfer, as well as point-to-point audio and video.
Asynchrony Envoke - a government-off-the-shelf (GOTS)/COTS software application providing users of different systems awareness or presence of other users, spaces and meetings.
Sun Microsystems SunForum - provides shared applications and conferencing for PC and UNIX operating systems.
Digital Dash Server - a GOTS integration effort to provide space-based integrated collaboration services built on Microsoft Digital Dashboard technology. Services include space navigation, awareness, shared file space, access control, VTC conference joins, broadcast messages and system administration services.
First Virtual Communications MultiPoint Control Unit (MCU) - a COTS software application service enabling multipoint NetMeeting sessions.
Microsoft SQL Server - a complete database and analysis offering for rapidly delivering the next generation of scalable e-commerce, line-of-business and data warehousing solutions.
...The DCTS standard suite and several certified collaboration tools were deployed during contingency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq in support of deliberate and crisis action planning...
K-Collector Topics: Collaboration Dashboard Digital Lifestyle Listings Open Source Open Standards presence Productivity Video Virtual Worlds Microsoft Sun Microsystems