Initial Statement of Work for NPAC ARL PET Activities

Preamble

This covers a planning period which will be used to prepare background information and get initial start on some activities which will go into "production mode" as soon as possible. This work will be motivated by guidelines for PET activities emerging from recent meeting at Houston which include:

• Need for clear early successes linked to an overall long term vision.
• Particular attention to visible PET wide activities.

A general strategy emerged from conversations between Ginny To and Fox at Houston. Although this will evolve and perhaps change significantly, we will start the planning along this initial strategy outlined below.

• FMS use of HPCC is currently very small and straightforward "porting" approach for existing codes is not likely to exhibit early successes (One exception is noted in next bullet). Thus our major initial strategy is based on "new ways of doing things" using web technologies (especially Java and VRML 2.0). These have natural applicability to distributed virtual environments and "human/machine in the loop" distributed simulations.
• One simple early use of HPCC is to host parallel versions of large scale embedded simulations such as a weather simulation which is part of some FMS models.
• There is interest in large scale parallel databases.
• There is some synergy between IMT and FMS which should be explored.
• Training in advanced Web technologies at ARL could be useful.
• PET-wide software repositories

Proposed Activities

The activities in the initial period through August 17, 1997 are briefly described below. Please note that budget figures are considered very rough at the moment,and most implicitly include local technical and clerical support. Once we have basic agreement on the proposed activities and the associated rough costs, we can prepare a complete budget with the appropriate level of detail.

• Exchange of information describing NPAC and ARL activities
• One or more visits by Fox and NPAC staff to ARL involving NPAC presentations to ARL and vice versa.
• Travel (est. 4 visitors, 3 days each): $4200
• Distributed Computing and Web Technology for FMS and IMT
• Examination of the requirements of FMS and IMT and how new and emerging software technologies can be used to help meet them.
• Deliverables
• White paper describing the results of the study (17 August)
• Analysis and report on network traffic from simulation data to be provided by Ginny To (17 August)
• Coordinate with Rome Labs to allow web-based Command and Control demonstration to be implemented on ARL computer systems in Year 2
• Effort: 1.25 students, 0.70 staff
• Parallel Databases for FMS, IMT, and other ARL Activities
• Examination of the role of parallel database technology in FMS, IMT, and other applications of interest to ARL
• Deliverables
• White paper describing the results of the study (17 August)
• Effort: 0.4 staff
• Training
• Elementary Web-Linked Databases (delivery after 31 May)
• 1 day, 1 instructor
• NPAC has the bulk of these materials prepared and can offer this course earlier than the August time frame if desired
• Parallel Databases and Web-Linked Databases (materials by 1 August, delivery following)
• 2 days (1 day if web-linked database course is presented separately, 1 instructor
• Initial development of course materials for "Web Technology for Virtual Environments, FMS, and IMT " to be completed and offered in Year 2
• 3 days, 2 instructors, workshop format
• Effort: 0.5 students, 0.5 staff
• Travel (2 courses delivered at ARL): $2000
• DoD Software Repositories
• Installation of the software infrastructure (end of April)
• Development of a "showcase" repository in SIP (end of June)
• Development of a "showcase" repository in CCM (end of June)
• Effort: 0.25 students, 0.10 staff
• Project Management, including on-site hiring activities
• Effort: 0.20 staff
• Recruiting costs (ads, interviews, moving expenses):  $7,500
• Fox's combined efforts for information exchange, visits, and technical direction
• Effort: 2 weeks