A verbal model of the army command and control infosphere: which resources are available.

Nowadays, one of the most essential priority-driven doctrinal tasks in the development of the military organization of the state is to create a uniform system of national defense administration and ensure its efficient functioning, as well as to establish economic and financial conditions for the development and production of unified high-performance troop and weapon control systems and their information support mechanisms.

Common approaches to this doctrinal task (in any event, those related to information support) have been already considered in some of the articles previously published in the Voennaia mysl' (Military Thought) journal. (1) In particular, their authors made an attempt to show the role and place of military informatization in the structure of the state's military affairs trying to prove that military informatization is a conceptual component of the military system of the state and that development of the theory and practice of military schooling is only possible if there is a triple unity with military science and military art.

Let us first of all try to understand what "military informatization" actually means. Generally speaking, it represents a conceptual component of the state's military affairs, which is essential for the existence and development of both the theory and practice of these affairs. Military informatization defines activities in a space where two spheres and two subject areas intersect: the state's military affairs and anything connected with the accumulation, storing, handling and transfer of information. This second subject area is sometimes called infosphere. Then it is quite admissible to use such an expression as, for example, "an information space of the armed forces." It can be interpreted as a "space singled out from the infosphere by a sub-area of the state's military affairs, which is within the purview of the armed forces."

Based on the principle of unity of theory and practice and keeping in mind the fact that informatization is emerging as the dominant type of human activities, it is necessary to see the cluster "military art-military science-military informatization" as a single object of research investigating the activities of commanders (commanders-in-chief) and their staffs in the general infosphere (unified information space) of military science and military command and control.

The authors of the above articles have also given a definition of the common concept of infosphere of the state's military affairs, and substantiated decomposition of this infosphere in relation to the structural hierarchy of various control inforsperes: state management--national defense administration--military administration--army (force) command and control--weapon control. And a hypothetical version of the structure of the theory of the state's military affairs was taken as a background for the classification and decomposition of control infosphere. (2) Generally speaking, the elementary verbal (verbal, descriptive) model of control infosphere can be presented as a hierarchical network of administrative decisions. Optimization (rationalization) of such a decision-related network (information space) is the main problem of any control infosphere.

As this article will be devoted to army (force) control infosphere, we shall now explain what this concept really means and then we will try to formulate its definition.

Army (force) control infosphere could be viewed as an environment representing a collection of information, computing and communication resources organized in a certain manner in terms of space and time which are intended to support a decision making process while maintaining control over the armies (forces).

Let us dwell upon both the essence and the contents of the given definition. Generally speaking, resources are normally viewed as elements of a potential in any field of activity which, if necessary, could be used to achieve specific goals and objectives.

Computing resources of army (force) control infosphere represent any type of computer equipment and facilities capable of ensuring information processing in the interests of the military command structure officials. Therefore, computing resources could include computers, core memory, magnetic and magnetoptical carriers (magnetic tape, magnetic disks and diskettes, hard disks), mapping devices (panel for alphanumeric information, screens, recorders and other technological (software technical) devices and complexes).

Communication resources of army (force) control infosphere represent an aggregate of technical (software technical) devices ensuring information distribution and exchange between military command structure officials while maintaining army (force) command and control. Communication resources include, first of all, communication lines and facilities, as well as user's equipment.

It is quite obvious that the main (basic) element of army (force) control infosphere is constituted by the information resources, which primarily include the information used in decision-making while maintaining army (force) command and control.

In its literal sense, the "information" concept is identical to such concepts as "data," "intelligence," "evidence," "expertise," "knowledge," etc. In the Federal Law on Information, Information Technologies and Protection of Information, information is defined as data about people, items, objects, facts, events, phenomena and processes irrespective of the form of its presentation. From this definition it follows that information can be considered as the volume of accumulated knowledge about the surrounding world which is directly included in the communicative process as an information resource. However, until now there has been no unambiguous approach to the understanding of the term "information resource" as infosphere object, which leads to certain complexities when it is necessary to solve practical issues related to information resource development, storage and usage.

With all this said, it is suggested that for the purposes of this paper, information resource of army (force) control infosphere should be understood as army (force) control-related information that has been fixed on material carriers or in any other form ensuring its storage and distribution (in terms of time and space) between various categories of military command structure officials in the interests of solving various sorts of command and control-related tasks.

In practice, information resources of army (force) control infosphere represent army (force) command and control knowledge generated in the form of separate documents or document files, algorithms, mathematical models, mathematical methods and software fixed on various material carriers. In addition, the documents being a part of the information resources of the Russian Federation Armed Forces can include: battle management documents (battle orders, instructions, reports, war communiques), normative documents (orders, norms, staff schedules), reference information (qualifiers, dictionaries, glossaries), registration and accounting information (questionnaires, files), research and technological information (printed materials, R&D reports), information circulating in automated systems (databases, files, statements, reports) and other data arrays (maps, funds, schemes, posters, separate files and so forth).

Information of the above said types is fixated in physical media by various categories of military command structure officials, experts of research institutes, teachers of military educational institutions, teams of automation resource designers possessing the appropriate knowledge and having a special training level.

When starting to learn the information resource-related issues, it is necessary, first of all, to classify them, and then to determine the contents of each of the classified elements and the existing links between them.

In the process of the classification scheme formation (Fig. 1) it is very important that the classified group describing various types of information resources should be correctly indicated. It is the type of material information carrier that is normally taken into consideration in the resource classification process. Such an approach to choosing a classified group indicator tends to essentially complicate the process of decision-making with respect to information resource creation, storage and usage while building the army (force) control infosphere. First of all, this is associated with the fact that with the occurrence of a new carrier various problems could emerge with respect to registration, collection, transfer, storage and usage of the given resource, including the ways of its interaction with other resources. In some cases, the occurrence of a new carrier may require that certain modifications should be introduced in the classification scheme that has been already developed.

In this connection, it is suggested that the form of presentation of information fixed on the material carrier should be considered as a classified group indicator, not as an information carrier itself. Having selected a classified group indicator, we shall try to perform information resource decomposition. At the first level of decomposition, we shall divide information resources into two groups: formalized and non-formalized.

Formalized information resources are those that contain formalized information (knowledge) on the application environment (in our case this deals with army (force) control) fixed on the so-called machine-readable carriers (i.e. the carriers from which it is possible to read the information by using computer facilities).

Non-formalized information resources are those where information is fixed both on the material carriers not related to machine-readable carriers, and in the memory of the person possessing relevant knowledge and qualification in the application environment under consideration. It is expedient that we dwell upon the latter part of the definition and discuss it in more detail. Being the information carrier, a person can simultaneously act as its creator, consumer and interpreter. It is important to emphasize here that as the information interpreter, a person (in our case it is a military command structure official) can essentially change the attitude to any information included in the document to be prepared without changing the information contents, which may lead to absolutely unpredictable decisions.

At the second level of decomposition, we shall select the information resource functional applicability as a classified group indicator. Keeping this indicator in mind, formalized information resources can be divided into three independent groups:

* Group One. Functional information resources (knowledge, the rational use of which indirectly contributes to enhanced quality of administrative decisions, for example, by increasing the speed of exchange or visualization of the information presentation).

* Group Two. Intellectual information resources (knowledge used by military command structure officials while performing specific tasks dealing with army (force) control with the application of automation resources).

* Group Three. Instrumental information resources (knowledge which ensures the creation and support of formalized information resources).

Functional information resources may include reference information resources, cross-system software components, general purpose software components and electronic dictionaries.

The group of reference information resources includes documents fixed on a machine-readable carrier which are used by military officials in their daily practical activities. They may include, first of all, military information qualifiers, unified forms of military documents, normative data and reference information, electronic convectional signs, defense product standardization documents, dictionaries of military terms, glossaries and other documents.

General purpose software components are applied to maintain control over communications resources and shared resources, to support network services of system and user's levels, to support protocols of local and territorial distributive networks, and to create and process various documents and commands (signals).

The contents, structure and granularity of cross-system software components are determined by the tasks faced by military command structure officials, by the interaction with other information resources, and pursuant to requirements in the field of information protection against unauthorized access.

Intellectual information resources include mathematical methods, calculation techniques, algorithms, mathematical models, etc. (we shall name this group "reference intellectual information resources"), and program-aided implementation of the above mentioned calculation techniques, algorithms, mathematical models, etc. This group of information resources occupies a special niche in the army (force) control infosphere since the application of this sort of information resources contributes to the support of informational, calculation-analytical, forecast-simulating activity of military command structure officials and promotes the decision-making and operations planning processes.

The elements included in the structure of instrumental information resources are determined by the requirements to characteristics of general-purpose software components, cross-system software components and other programs fixed on a machine-readable carrier. Generally speaking, instrumental information resources may include program development and checkout components, as well as software testing elements.

It would be also important to emphasize that all the resources presented at the lower decomposition level are indivisible units of the army (force) control infosphere, the internal structure of which is not considered. In the process of creation of the said infosphere, a number of separate resources could combine their efforts to perform specific tasks in terms of providing military command structure officials with information services. For the purposes of this article we suggest that such joined resource summations should be called as aggregated resources of the army (force) control infosphere.

Efficient use of the information space of the army (force) control infosphere with the purpose of supporting administrative decisions would essentially depend on the quality of the information resources available in this space. Indeed, it is possible to ensure an appropriate quality of information resources taking the account of diversity of their sorts and types and material information carriers and the instruments providing for their creation, methods of storage and transfer of the information in the interests of the users only under the condition that the process of creation of the said resources is organized on a so-called industrial basis. This means that an information resource should ultimately represent a product created in accordance with the requirements established by the Russian Federation legislation in relation to development, acceptance, storage, transportation, application and utilization of the resource in consideration of the rights and obligations of the persons involved in its creation.

It should be reminded here that, in general terms, production represents a material product of work received or manufactured in a specific production process and intended for meeting public or personal needs.

Each sort of production possesses specific properties, which, in the aggregate, constitute its essence. Product properties normally emerge in the process of its manufacture, storage, transportation and consumption (application or usage).

Treating an information resource of army (force) control infosphere as a product, we could single out such its properties as functionality, usage convenience, safety, relevance, effort input, availability, dimension, reliability, mobility and maintainability. It appears appropriate that we dwell upon the contents of each of the above properties and discuss it in more detail.

Functionality is a possibility of performing functional duties by a military command structure official while using the information resource.

Usage convenience is the information resource ability to ensure appropriate conditions for the execution by a military command structure official of his functional duties.

Safety is the state of the information resource immunity against the impact of various destructive effects on the information as a result of which material loss (damage) can be inflicted to military personnel and fighting vehicles and equipment in the process of usage of the given resource by a military command structure official while performing his functional duties.

Relevance is understood as compliance of the data fixed on an information resource carrier with the tasks to be solved by a military command structure official.

Effort input is the range of labor and time consumption for creation of the information resource.

Availability is the possibility of referring to the information resource within assigned periods of time and in a query language accessible to a military command structure official.

Dimension is the range of the information resource volume (amount) expressed in terms of specified measurement units.

Reliability is the information resource ability to function without failures for an assigned period of time.

Mobility is the information resource ability to be transferred from one computing environment into another.

Maintainability is the information resource modifiability.

To control the procedure of designing and development of information resource as a product, the processes constituting the life cycle of the given product should be adequately described. The life cycle should cover all the aspects related to design, development, manufacture and operation of information resources, down to their removal from operation.

In general, the description of an information resource life cycle should represent the description of the sequence of stages (life cycle periods), which can be overlapped or iterated, depending on the type of the information resource, its available creation possibilities, development complexities and functional applicability. For each stage, it is necessary to set specific goals and targets to be achieved on the stage completion.

It is desirable that prior to describing information resource life cycle stages, each stage should be decomposed into work phases. This will ensure a more profound understanding of the processes connected not only with the resource development process, but also with the accounting of adopted decisions and assumptions concerning the subsequent stages.

A standard description of an information resource life cycle include the following stages: design, development, production, operation, support and writing-off (disposal).

The design stage is performed for the purpose of developing and substantiating preliminary requirements to the created information resource and the system solutions in terms of its designing. This stage is considered to be completed when initial data available for the performance of resource creation works and authorization of transition to the development stage are achieved.

The development stage starts with specifying preliminary requirements to the information resource and with converting design requirements into technical requirements, and then into a sample product, which passes the operation stage.

The production stage is carried out with the purpose of the resource creation in consideration of results of its sample testing and customer requirements, documentation development, personnel training and transition to the following stage. The given stage can overlap with the stages of development, operation and support.

The operation stage is carried out with the purpose of using the developed resource in planned conditions in the interests of the user. This stage includes the processes related to production usage, operation monitoring, as well as deviations, disadvantages and violations report compilation. During this stage the resource can be improved, adjusted, and its functional characteristics can be specified.

The support stage includes the processes related to securing support services and creating support infrastructure. This stage results in trained staff, functioning of all the support services, real interaction of the user with industrial organizations providing necessary adjustment of the resource used, and decision-making on its operation termination.

The write-off (disposal) stage provides for the information resource disposal as a result of problems, which may occur with respect to its further operation. This stage is applied when the period of operation of the infromation resource comes to an end and there is a necessity in decision -making on removing the said resource from operation.

It should also be mentioned that development of an information resource as a product promotes the necessity of setting and solving scientific, methodical and organizational tasks, the major of which are the following.

Information resource legal status establishment. An information resource, while being the object of relations between physical and legal persons, is subject to mandatory accounting and protection as any material property of the proprietor, i.e. it is an object of law. Depending on circumstances, the information resource can be relevant and out-of-date, objective and subjective, exact and inexact, proved and ungrounded. From here it follows that the use of information resources by military command structure officials in decision-making is associated with a certain risk.

It needs to be emphasized here that the legal status of information resource army (force) control infosphere is formed on the basis of an aggregate of legislatively established rights and duties of military command structure officials, as well as on the basis of legal guarantees of their implementation. We are actually referring here to the information resource legal support development, which represents the aggregate of legal norms regulating legal relationships in the process of information resource manufacture, storage, transfer and usage in a previously assigned information space.

Information resource normative base creation. The activity dealing with the establishment of necessary requirements to products, to the processes involving their manufacture and sale, as well as to control over the observance of these requirements is based on standardization system application and certification compliance confirmation control. The main legislative document regulating this area is the Federal Law on Technical Regulation. The concept of this law implies that all mandatory requirements to products and services should be established only by technical rules determined by federal laws and resolutions of the Russian Federation Government. And after the said technical rules have come into force, the mandatory standard requirements cease to be mandatory any more and the state starts maintaining its control over the technical rules observance. And this results in a situation when the existing normative base (which ensures product creation) needs to be replaced with technical rules, which should be developed under the requirements of the new law. This problem fully concerns information resources as well.

However, we should recognize here that from the entire range of currently effective standardization documents we can single out only a few standard complexes which are related to the problem under examination. In particular, this involves the application of several dozens of state standards (GOSTs), such as the Automated Army Control Systems GOST RV (series 52333. XXXX), Product Development and Production Application System GOST RV (series 15. XXXX), Uniform Program Documentation System GOST (series 19. XXXX), etc. These documents contain specific requirements to information protection against unauthorized access, to product quality assessment, user interface and program product life cycle.

Information resource safety. We shall remind here that information resource safety is a sort of property, which depends on the destructive effects on the information fixed on this resource.

A destructive effect on an information resource can be rendered by unauthorized access to the information resource, information leakage via various channels, presence of destructive factors and computer viruses. Destructive effects on an information resource are associated with the risks of resource harming (damaging) while using the given resource during logical, analytical, calculating and administrative activity perfromed performed by military command structure officials. Such risk would mean a probability of occurrence of an adverse event as a result of which the above harm (damage) can be incurred. A probable harm (damage) here is evaluated by quantitative parameters, for example, the extent of losses of combat forces (resources). Information resource safety is ensured at all stages of information resource life cycle, and it provides for the implementation of a number of organizational and methodical measures aimed at mitigating (to an acceptable level) the impact of destructive factors.

Information resource quality evaluation. The concept "quality" with reference to an information resource army (force) control infosphere should be understood as an aggregate of properties reflecting the degree of the given resource suitability used by military command structure officials while implementing command and control tasks.

To measure the quality of an information resource, it is necessary to use the quality metrics which represent a set of attributes in terms of description and evaluation of quality of the information resource in question. In this situation, the quality metrics should have the names precisely reflecting the nature of quality, dimension and the number defining the property value. As a rule.quality metrics are given the same names as the product properties. In a terminological aspect, this makes it possible to achieve (in most cases) mutual understanding between the development and users of information resources in the process of the resource design, manufacture, implantation, storage and operation. For example, in our case, the quality metrics of an information resource army (force) control infos phere can have the names of the properties specified above, namely: functionality, convenience of usage, safety, relevance, effect input, availability, dimension, reliability, mobility, maintainability.

Therefore, while referring to the verbal model of army (force) control infosphere, we can come to a conclusion that it is available in the notation of three key resources: computing, communication and information. Since the primary focus of attention of control system researchers and designers is the quality of administrative solutions, which depends, first of all, on the quality of the initial information, it is the information resources that play the key role in the triad of infos-phere resources.

As far as the verbal model is concerned, the automated control system (ACS) is actually viewed as a synonym to the administrative solution information support system. The automated control system which functions within the inforsphere "surrounding" this automated system, can be considered as a purely information resource (i.e. only as a source a consumer of the appropriate information).

The next level of the army (force) control infosphere "priority profile" * is represented by intelligent information resources. Inadequacy of theoretical research, as well as fragmented, unsystematic nature of practical developments in this area represent a serious threat to the quality of the Russian Federation Armed Forces informatization perspectives.

In the event of an objectively necessary transition to a new paradigm of military scientific research, (3) the problem of information resource classification, accumulation, aggregation and utilization appears to be one of the most essential. And the task of this article is only to outline the said problem.

NOTES:

(1.) Voennaia mysl', No. 6, 2005, p. 42; No 6, 2006, pp. 75-80.

(2.) V.A. Kulikov, Istoriya oruzhiya i vooruzheniya narodov i gosudarstv, MIREA Publishers, Moscow, 2001, p. 90.

(3.) Voennaia musl', No. 1, 2008, pp. 71-80.

* The army (force) control system information infrastructure should be understood as a specifically arranged set of computing equipment (computing resources) and telecommunication means (communication resources) ensuring accumulation, storage, handling and transferring of the information resources to a military command structure official to support army (force) control decision-making.

V.R. GRIN

Capt. 1st Rank (Ret.)

Candidate of Technical Sciences