1 June 1998
Source: http://www.monmouth.army.mil/dms/current.htm
Thanks to DS


Technical Management Division

Overview

Director: 
Bill Stapleton
Voice: (732) 427-6683
DSN:  987-6683

FAX (732)532-3333

FAX (DSN) 992-3333

Snail-Mail: 

PM, Defense Message System - Army   ATTN: SFAE-PS-DMS (Bill Stapleton) Bldg 283, Squier Hall Fort Monmouth, NJ 07703-5605

LAB OVERVIEW

Monmouth Lab

Arlington Lab
Proof Of Concept (POC) Strawman
Flexible Architecture Demonstration 12-15 August Briefing
Next Demonstration:

Location:  The Myer Center Main Conference Center.   Dates:

Mid October. 
PM DMS-Army Messaging solutions for the soldier.!


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  Project Manager, Defense Message System Army has established laboratories with the ultimate mission of supporting the warfighter both in garrison and out in the field. The primary focus of the lab is fielding a tactical DMS solution.  This graphic depicts the laboratory topology of the Fort Monmouth location. The lab has several rack mounted mockups of the Tactical Message System's (TMS)  vehicular configuration and has an actual TMS in the transit or ruggedized carrying case configuration.   The transit case configuration has been demonstrated at last years CINC conference, last years Signal Symposium, as well as AFCEA's TECHNET which will be discussed in more detail below. 

The vehicular TMS versions (on heavy HUMVEEs --two each), are due to arrive in September and will be parked adjacent to the lab awaiting participation in the DMS tactical Proof Of Concept (POC) and follow-on fielding.   Look for the TMS at Fort Monmouth in September behind Squier Hall, in the Myer Center during the Joint Tactical Working Group Seminar in October, the Signal Symposium at Fort Gordon the first week of December, and at Fort Hood -- for the Proof Of Concept (date TBD).

The Monmouth lab can connect to the Digital Integrated Lab (DIL) complex on Fort Monmouth which provides access to the Army communication systems such as: Mobile Subscriber Equipment system (MSE) and TRI-TAC. This lab also belongs to the Technical Insertion Environment (TIE) sponsored by DISA and Executive Agent Tactical Switched Systems (EA-TSS). PM-DMS Army and EA-TSS broke ground during the latter months of 1996 when they successfully passed DMS message traffic across the Tactical Packet Network (TPN).  Message timing data was collected while sending DMS traffic over the TPN while varying the placement of the UA(s) and MTAs on TPN attachment points. 

A higher level view of PM DMS Army's Lab activities is here.  This graphic depicts some of the potential uses of the lab in supporting the warfighter. It depicts the networks, facilities. and organizations that the lab can tap to provide the best possible messaging solution for the  soldier.

One of the Technical Team's hightlights this year was showcasing the transit case variant of the Tactical Message System at TECHNET -- the AFCEA technology symposium held in Washington D.C., June 17 - 19. PM DMS Army' s participation in TECHNET was a success! DMS traffic was passed to AUTODIN, to other booths exhibiting DMS (LMFS), and to new multi-function gateway messaging systems being demonstrated by California Microwave and CommPower.   A wireless link was even utilized in this techical tour de force for Army messaging.

The Arlington lab is programmed to receive a starter kit soon.  The Arlington lab, aside assisting with all the demonstrations and providing the technical direction to the Monmouth lab through Mr. Bob Anderson; will specifically develop the role of DMS in garrison. 

The Arlington lab has outstanding conference and demonstration facilities which were used to  host several demonstrations (so far) to the DISA IG (Implementation Working Group) and to over a hundred individuals from dozens of organizations representing the entire DoD spectrum during the week of the 12th to the 15th of August.  Potential DMS users were afforded the opportunity to see for themselves that sending a DMS message is not that much different from sending commercial mail and that they could in fact send either DMS (X.400) or commercial messages from the same mail client/user agent.   The purpose of this demo was also to feature key components of the DMS system in the flexible architecture configuration.  See Briefing.

In short, the flexible architecture simultaneously employs DMS (X.400/X.500) messaging capabilities with commercial SMTP messaging from the same client/server (UA/MTA) configuration.   PM DMS-Army provided the flexible architecture display and California Microwave provided the components which enabled DMS to AUTODIN and DMS to SMTP functionality.  This large PowerPoint file (1.3 MB) was sent via a Lotus User Agent (DMS organizational user) through an  ESL IMTA to a Microsoft Outlook User Agent signed and encrypted -- opened and displayed.    The whole process only took about a minute and one half from starting from User Agent Icons for Lotus and Microsoft User Agents respectively.  Another purpose of this demonstration was for PM DMS-Army to provide an opportunity for California Microwave's to showcase the breadth and utility of its Communications Gateway System - 400 and its Integrated Contingency Communications System or ICCS.  

The Communications Gateway System (CGS-400): incorporates the features of the CGS-100 then adds several key protocol conversion capabilities inherent to the DMS MFI (see Army Homepage) -- all running on Microsoft NT 4.0.

The CGS-400 is intended to bridge the gap between existing legacy systems (AUTODIN) and DMS. It is a message store and forward switching system which provides message center operations with integrated TCP/IP multi-port gateway routing for message dissemination and the Multi-Functional Interpreter (MFI) from COMMPOWER. 

CommPower's Multi-Function Interpreter (MFI) offers secure and transparent messaging between disparate communities, including DMS-DISN (Fortezza invoked secure X.400 mail based on P772 and P42), DCS-AUTODIN (JANAP128 over Mode 1 and Mode II), NATO NICS-TARE (ACP127 over EDC and Async), Internet (SMTP-MIME over RFC822), and commercial X.400 users (P2 and P22 based mail).

In this configuration, the CGS-400 interfaces to AUTODIN using Modes I, II, and IV for TRI-TAC. SLIP, PPP, X.25, and 802.3 are all supported network protocols supported. JANAP-128 to ACP-123 message format conversions and support for X.400 and X.500 features are a few examples of what this versatile box can do. The Integrated Contingency Communication System (ICCS) is provides capabilities similar to the CGS-400 and adds four KIV-7 crypto devices, four wireline adapters, one Cisco router, and a printer. The Army PM shop is purchasing several ICCS platforms to integrate into its Tactical Message System (TMS) platform for evaluation for supporting the warfighter with business quality messaging in the field.

Summary:  Our goal in the short term is to put DMS in the hands of the warfighter. We are planning a Proof of Concept (POC) where DMS products will be put in system in a tactical environment. Open items on the Tactical Working Group's agenda as well as training and doctrinal development as represented by the Signal Center can be more fully examined. A strawman POC topology is depicted here.