133. The aim of this chapter is to describe a profile for a tactical Enterprise Service Bus (tact ESB) to be used in a coalition, highly mobile and distributed environment. The profile focuses specifically on requirements from military usage and goes beyond the ESB specification, available in civil implementations/products.
134. The profile is a generic specification; following the principle construction elements, it allows for na-tional implementations a derivation from the proposed one, not losing the interoperability aspects.
135. Within NATO, interoperability is defined as, the ability to act together coherently, effectively and efficiently to achieve Allied tactical, operational and strategic objectives. In the context of the information exchange, interoperability means that a system, unit or forces of any service, nation can transmit data to and receive data from any other system, unit or forces of any service or nation, and use the exchanged data to operate effectively together. This tactical ESB Interoperability Profile places the required tactical interoperability requirements, standards and specifications, to include the related reference architecture elements, in context for those nations/organizations providing for or participating in the tactical capability development. Use of this interoperability profile aims to help NATO, the Nations and non-NATO actors achieve cost-effective solutions to common tactical requirements by leveraging significant tactical investments across the tactical community of interest.
136. This profile uses the terms “Service Interoperability Profile (SIP)” and “Service Interoperability Point (SIOP)” as defined in EAPC (AC/322)D(2006)0002-REV1.
137. The aim of the tact ESB Interoperability Profile is to facilitate increased tactical interoperability through enhanced federated sharing of tactical data and information.
138. The need for a profile is driven by the complexity of a federated battlefield. There are an ever-growing number of interrelated specifications, standards, and systems all at different stages of development and adoption, and often with conflicting requirements. The profile provides a ge-neric ESB specification which allows different nations/organizations in a federated environment to exchange data/information under harmonized security policies across national/organizational boundaries and to provide and use services to/from partners.
139. The following ten assumptions were made as part of the overall context for developing this pro-file:
The tact ESB Interoperability includes the ability to share information throughout the entire federated battlefield consistent with stakeholder information needs and stakeholder willingness to share information.
Tact ESB enables the NATO Network Enabled Capability (NNEC); the primary enabler of Information Superiority is NNEC in an tactical environment.
The tact ESB capabilities are developed along the lines of a service-oriented architecture (SOA) approach within a federated environment.
Tact ESB in support of NATO operations will be developed in conformity with the relevant international norms and international law.
Promotion of an agreed set of common standards will be required in many areas for the effective and efficient transfer of the tact ESB data and information from and to participating nations and organizations.
A key principle for tact ESB interoperability and its underlying broad information sharing is Information Assurance. Information shall be managed with an emphasis on the “responsibility-to-share” balanced with security requirements.
Current assets (standards, frameworks, documents, systems, and services) will be used to the largest extent possible.