The Department of Defense (DoD) and the commercial sector have become increasingly affordability conscious. In this environment, system architectures have a significant role in developing and maintaining functional performance, affordability and supportability over the life cycle. This SBIR project develops an architecture evaluation framework for analyzing complex, dynamically reconfigurable, net-centric system architectures such as DD(X) to ensure effective system operation and maintenance. ASSETT has previous experience in both DoD and commercial industry in the development of architecture evaluation tools and is partnered with Stevens Institute of Technology to tailor a framework consistent with DoD and commercial industry requirements for this SBIR. Our approach uses systems engineering processes to focus on nine (9) key attributes: deployed operations, functional performance, physical implementation, RMA, expandability, customer?s and developer?s organizational structures, technology, security, and cost. Phase I of this effort produces a lexicon and metrics that allow system architects to assess complex, distributed systems. Our approach establishes a framework that compares the viability of candidate architectures and provides a set of test cases to demonstrate the effectiveness of this architecture evaluation framework. Phase II incorporates guidance from the Navy and focuses on developing and demonstrating the prototype assessment framework via the test cases. Benefit The transition to Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) intensive systems triggered the need to analyze the impact of system architecture on system performance, affordability, and supportability. The outcome of that effort has been realized in the Fixed Distributed System (FDS), the Virginia Class Command, Control, Communication and Intelligence (C3I) System and the Acoustic Rapid COTS Insertion (A-RCI) programs for the submarine Navy. These programs plus others have demonstrated an 8:1 reduction in development costs, a 4:1 reduction in acquisition cost and a 2:1 reduction in support costs. Concurrent with these cost benefits was a 10:1 increase in processing throughput. This cost is governed by the systems architecture and its ability to adapt to change. Therefore, having an evaluation framework and the tools to implement that framework will bring about a significant reduction in Total Ownership Costs for DD(X), other DoD platforms, as well as commercial systems. In addition to architecture evaluation of DD(X) and other dynamically reconfigurable, highly distributed defense systems, our proposed evaluation framework is general enough to analyze a wide variety of complex, net-centric system architectures such as IBM?s proposed On-Demand system, emerging and existing third generation telecommunication systems and commercial aerospace systems. Given our previous involvement with IBM and NOKIA, and the emphasis that these two major corporations are placing on system architecture, development of an architecture evaluation process and supporting toolset has significant potential in the commercial marketplace. It is our intent to work with IBM to incorporate this architecture evaluation capability resulting from this SBIR into their Rational integrated toolset. Keywords test cases, Attributes, architecture evaluation framework, metrics, total ownership cost, Measurement, complex dynamically reconfigurable distributed systems, Prototype
