Leveraging the Cloud to Support Communications in the Tactical Environment

摘要

Tactical computing includes all computations necessary to provide shared situational awareness among geographically dispersed forces in a digitally connected battlespace. Cloud computing, which builds on grid computing, service-oriented computing, and virtualization technologies, is an enabler for building the globally distributed system-of-systems necessary for accomplishing the ultimate goal of net-centric warfare. Moreover, secured and robust tactical communications are essential for the optimum use of cloud techniques to distribute data and processing over the tactical environment. This report presents two high-level use cases to understand how cloud computing can play a role in supporting spectrum management--an important component of tactical communications--and presents key challenges and possible approaches to address the challenges in making the cloud-based system timely, robust, trustworthy, and interoperable, as well as a means to validate and verify such systems.