White Paper SGI Support and Value Add to the Common Operating…

White Paper




SGI Support and Value Add to the Common Operating Environment
Providing Compliant Systems for Defense Customers
1.0 Common Operating Environment (COE) Background
The COE was initiated to establish a commonality of major system functions--mapping, track management, and communication inter-
faces, among others--within a federated command-and-control system. Ongoing COE developments focus on resiliency, security, and
interoperability among heterogeneous environments. In the future the COE will be modified to support sensor-to-shooter real-time appli-
cations. All new Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) systems are being built using the COE standards, and existing DISA systems
are being migrated to use the COE as well.

SGI® high-performance computing and visual technologies are available to support the Command, Control, Communications, Computer,
Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) warfighter's core mission. One example of such technology is the SGI decision
support center solution, which provides a new level of visual collaboration to joint force commanders. SGI provides unrivaled perfor-
mance in solution platforms that support complex and advanced data management.

As warfighters generate increasingly demanding C4ISR and weapons control requirements, SGI is committed to provide COE-compliant
solutions that maintain SGI's leadership in high-performance computing, secure real-time architectures, graphics processing, and immer-
sive display technology.


2.0 COE Principles
COE emphasizes software and data reuse, as well as interoperability for data and software. But its principles are more far-reaching and
innovative. The common operating environment concept encompasses all of the following:
  · An architecture of interoperable systems (plug and play)
  · Common human/machine interface
  · Reusable software components and data
  · Strict system security requirements

The goal of the COE standard is to establish common system functions that can be extracted and implemented as a set of extensible low-
level building blocks and made readily available to system designers and system integrators. Interoperability can be significantly improved
because common software can be used across systems for common functions. Development schedules can be accelerated and substantial
savings achieved through software reuse that is guided by COE standards. COE functionality is provided by software layers built from the
bottom up.




                                     Mission-Critical Applications (MCA)

                                     Common Support Applications (CSA)

                                     Infrastructure Service (IS)

                                     COE Kernel

                                     SGI® IRIX® OS on SGI Hardware



3.0 COE Architecture on SGI IRIX
The IRIX operating system running on SGI hardware provides a robust and feature-rich environment that fully supports the layers above
it. High-performance computing and 3D graphics capabilities built into the SGI IRIX architecture with MIPS® processors are sound build-
ing blocks to support the demanding requirements of       5.0 COE Compliance Across the IRIX and MIPS
mission-critical applications. In addition to the com-    Product Lines
mercial compliance with POSIX standards required          The COE KPC process is extensive and thorough. It
by the COE program, IRIX provides other capabilities,     puts into practice all COE principles when it certifies
such as:                                                  a specific vendor platform. However, time and cost
· Real-time performance with IRIX running REACTTM         do not permit COE certification for all combinations
  software                                                of CPUs, operating systems, and computers.
· High-availability features with the FailSafeTM family
  of system software                                      SGI's policy on IRIX running MIPS processors man-
· Security features evaluated by the National             dates application binary compatibility across all
  Security Agency                                         release levels of its IRIX 6.5 operating system
· Data integrity assurances by XFSTM filesystems          throughout its product family. This policy has been
· SGI® NUMA, the most flexible and scalable hard-         successfully implemented for the last four years and
  ware architecture in the industry, providing scal-      assures the warfighter that the COE kernel will exe-
  able computer systems and the highest I/O               cute correctly across all SGI computers running the
  throughput                                              IRIX 6.5 operating system. The COE kernel has been
· Binary compatibility, from desktop systems to large     tested internally in a number of hardware variants
  high-performance computing platforms such as            without requiring recompilations, from IRIX® 6.5.3 to
  the SGI® Origin® server family                          the latest release of IRIX.

4.0 The COE Kernel                                        In addition, SGI continues to invest in the
The COE kernel is the minimal set of software             IEEE/POSIX and UNIX® Open Group branding. This
required on every platform, regardless of how the         branding effort, combined with SGI's application
platform will be used. A COE kernel contains the          binary compatibility guarantee, demonstrates SGI's
operating system and windowing environment and            commitment to the COE program.
will normally include several other features such as a
basic system administration function, a basic securi-     6.0 Above and Beyond Kernel Compliance: IS,
ty administration function, an executive manager          CSA, and ICSF
function, a utility for creating privileged operator      SGI has already invested in the KPC program and
login accounts, a utility for creating nonprivileged      accomplished a successful certification with COE
operator login accounts, and COE tools for segment        kernel version 3.3. But that success is just the begin-
installation. Also, the COE Developer's Toolkit pro-      ning. SGI has ported the newest release of the kernel
vides an environment for system integrators and           (V. 4.2), and will continue to port all new releases
developers who develop mission applications under         and upgrades. SGI personnel are trained to support
the COE. The COE kernel running on SGI IRIX is COE        COE kernel problem resolutions in the latest versions
compliant.                                                ported to IRIX and will provide patches if necessary.

Compliance with the COE has been mandated for             SGI activities in support of the COE do not stop with
C4ISR systems by the JTA specification. COE compli-       the COE kernel. SGI has created a COE build list,
ance certification is accomplished through the COE        which includes key COE infrastructure services and
Kernel Platform Certification (KPC) program. This         common support applications (CSA). These software
program validates standards conformance through           elements support the development and deployment
the Integration and Run-Time Specification                of many important mission-critical applications. This
Certification Criteria. The COE platform must comply      new and aggressive effort includes porting of the
with testing that includes in-depth functionality         Integrated C4ISR System Framework (ICSF). ICSF has
checking and security lockdowns that greatly              been recognized as the most important element of
increase systems' security integrity. SGI is one of       the CSA, used widely across defense operators.
only two vendors to complete such rigorous testing.
7.0 Expanded COE Participation
SGI intends to stay active within the COE community,
including support of the COE management and the
technical working groups as well as various special
interest groups. Please visit SGI's Web site at
www.sgi.com for more information on SGI products,
software, and solutions as they relate to COE.

8.0 SGI Commitments to COE
SGI demonstrates its commitment to COE by:
· Continuing its leadership in high-performance
  computing, secure real-time architectures, graph-
  ics processing, and immersive display technology
  to ensure that warfighters can satisfy their most
  challenging operational C2 and weapons control
  requirements on COE-compliant platforms
· Ensuring all IRIX architectures are compliant with
  COE version 4.2
· Working with DISA COE to establish and improve a
  certification process that ensures current versions
  of both COE kernel and vendor architectures are
  available and compliant
· Bringing the most advanced broadband and graph-
  ically capable IRIX architectures to the deployed
  warfighter
· Offering complete COE architecture support with
  an SGI build list that includes applications such as
  the Integrated C4ISR System Framework
· Being a leader in the COE community




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                             ©  2002 Silicon Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved. Silicon Graphics, SGI, IRIX, Origin, and the SGI logo are registered trademarks and FailSafe, REACT, and XFS are trademarks of Silicon Graphics,
                             Inc., in the U.S. and/or other countries worldwide. MIPS is a registered trademark of MIPS Technologies, Inc., used under license by Silicon Graphics, Inc. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open
                             Group in the U.S. and other countries. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.

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