Government/Military Trends

Joint Technical Architecture (JTA)

Issue Table of Contents

Joint Technical Architecture (JTA) DoD Launches JTAonline A New Tool to Streamline the JTA Development Process New JTA Referenced Standards Collection Compliance Made Easier

Effective military operations require the ability to respond with a mix of forces, anywhere in the world, on a moment's notice. Interoperability is essential for these joint operations. Information must flow seamlessly and quickly among DoD's sensors, processing command centers, and forces out in the field to enable dominant battlefield awareness and operations inside the enemy's decision loop. The DoD Joint Technical Architecture (JTA) is a key piece of DoD's overall strategy to achieve this capability. JTA's open, standards-based approach offers significant opportunities to reduce cost and cut development and fielding time through enhancing software portability, use of commercial off-the-shelf software, ease of system upgrades, and hardware independence.

In August 1996, the Office of the Secretary of Defense mandated that acquisition program managers use the JTA for all command, control, communication, and intelligence systems. In November 1998, the Office of the Secretary of Defense broadened the JTA requirement to include all systems that produce, use, or exchange information electronically; cross a functional or DoD Component boundary; or give the warfighter or DoD decision maker an operational capability. Today, the JTA specifies a set of performance-based, primarily commercial, information process, transfer, content, format, and security standards. These standards specify the logical interfaces in command, control, and intelligence systems and the communications and computers (C4) that directly support them.

Use of non-government standards in lieu of military documents is an important part of the DoD's strategy to foster commercial/military integration. Active DoD participation on industry standard development committees is of paramount importance. The following Standard Developing Organizations (SDO's) are active participants with the government to create JTA standards that are viable for both government and commercial use:

• Aerospace Industry Association (AIA)
• American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
• Asynchronous Transfer Mode Forum (ATM)
• Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC)
• Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA)
• Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS)
• Government Electronics and Information Technology Association (GEIA)
• Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
• International Organizations for Standardization (ISO)
• International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
• Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
• National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
• National Standards System Network (NSSN)
• Object Management Group (OMG)
• Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE)
• Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA)
• World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
  …and more!

Standards from other SDO's are continually being reviewed and may eventually become part of the JTA. The standards represented fall into the following categories:

• C4 Standards
• Combat Support Standards
• FAQ
• Human Computer Interface Standards
• Information Modeling, Metadata, and Information Exchange Standards
• Information Processing Standards
• Information Security Standards
• Information Transfer Standards
• Modeling and Simulation Standards
• Weapon Systems Standards

As referenced in the JTA Document Version: 4.0 Section 1.10 Standards Selection Criteria, the standards selection criteria used throughout the JTA focus on mandating only those items critical to interoperability that are based primarily on commercial open system technology, which are able to be implemented, and have strong support in the commercial marketplace. Standards will only be mandated if they meet all of the following criteria:

1. Interoperability: They enhance joint and potentially combined Service/Agency information exchange and support joint activities.
2. Maturity: They are technically mature (strong support in the commercial marketplace) and stable.
3. Implement ability: They are technically implemental.
4. Public: They are publicly available.
5. Consistent with Authoritative Source: They are consistent with law, regulation, policy, and guidance documents.

The following preferences are used to select standards:

• Standards that are commercially supported in the marketplace with validated implementations available in multiple vendors' mainstream commercial products took precedence.
• Publicly held standards were generally preferred.
• International or national industry standards were preferred over military or other government standards.
• Standards that can be implemented without requiring intellectual property (patent) rights were generally preferred.
• Many standards have optional parts or parameters that can affect interoperability. In some cases, an individual standard may be further defined by a separate, authoritative document called a "profile" or a "profile of a standard," which further refines the implementation of the original standard to ensure proper operation and assist interoperability.

The standards cited in the JTA include commercial, federal, and military standards and specifications, and various other kinds of authoritative documents and publications. The JTA is a practical document that identifies standards where products are available today. It is mandatory for all emerging systems and system upgrades. The JTA is a living document that continues to evolve as technology and the marketplace change. ¹