1. “Plug Fest,” RI2P,* and A3** as a Catalyst for DI2E*** Government Lead Chris Gunderson (cgunders@nps.edu)cgunders@nps.edu Industry Leads Andras Szakal (aszakal@us.ibm.com)aszakal@us.ibm.com Eric Westreich (ewestreich@esri.com)ewestreich@esri.com *Rapid Innovation Integration Platform, People, and Process **Agile, Asymmetric Acquisition ***Defense Intelligence Information Enterprise

2. PlugFest Demonstration Rapid Innovation Integration Process Agile Asymmetric Acquisition Unsustainable Acquisition Process Emerging Enlightened Government Policy Growing Open Consortium of Change Agents Draconian Budget Reductions Looming Threat to the Status Quo* A “Plug Fest” is industrial best practice for proving interoperability. Our PlugFest is a government, academic, & industry grass roots partnership that grew from both: 1. Frustration with gov’t IT acquisition issues, and 2. The promise provided by changing technical and acquisition landscape. A growing group of gov’t/industry change agents are leveraging this PlugFest approach to demo the art of the possible re Internet COTS best practice. Approach will succeed by gently inserting new-think into comfortable acquisition boilerplate artifacts per FAR, DoD 5000, etc. via, e.g., new JCIDS “IT Box” *Status Quo = well documented dysfunctional government IT acquisition process

3. Bottom Line Up Front Government information system acquisition is broken. Emerging enlightened policies and Internet plug-and- play paradigms can help … …if, and only if …. The government enterprise fundamentally changes is spending paradigms to incentivize the desired fundamentally different outcomes! PlugFest demonstrates processes, platforms, and people capable of catalyzing the necessary changes. Defense Intelligence Information Enterprise (DI2E) is a likely early success case

4. What’s a Plug Fest? “Plug Fest”, generically, is a pragmatic industrial best practice for proving that a product or service is usefully interoperable per a chosen standard stack. According to Wikipedia, “ …. Plug Tests or Plug Fest… test the interoperability of products or designs …(the) technical goal is twofold: check compliance to the standard, and test the effectiveness of the standard… plug tests … improve transparency on compliancy.” Plug Fests frequently include some form of “fun” competition, however the real objective of participants is always to gain market share through interoperability within the ecosystem of interest.

5. Test Harness Open interface Artifact under test Open interface Reference System Implementation Test Case including work flow, metrics, thresholds and objectives Standard Conformance (validation & verification) Functional Complianc e Performance Conformance V&V score Functional score Performance score Conformance V&V score Functional score Performance score Generic Plug Test

6. Test Harness Open interface Artifact under test Open interface Reference System Implementation Test Case including work flow, metrics, thresholds and objectives Standard Conformance (validation & verification) Functional Complianc e Performance Conformance V&V score Functional score Performance score Conformance V&V score Functional score Performance score Our Government- Industry Plug Test Mash ups and COTS/GOTS apps, data, and services Prototype of evolving government standards Provided by participating vendors So far…Functional verification + Subjective eval by expert judges Operational SMEs validate mission threads

7. Plug Fest Lessons Learned* Potential participants must see value (e.g. near term sales for vendors, capability for customers) in the effort Operational SMEs and realistic scenarios drive effective tech innovation – Get detailed use case to participating vendor tech team early – Encourage innovative departure from script Vendor tech & biz dev folks benefit tremendously by plug fest partnership with each other Government benefits from vendor IRaD investments solving government problems *Four successful AFCEA PlugFest events in CY12&13

8. Our Plug Fest Initiative Demonstrates two mutually supportive paradigm shifts: – Industrial Rapid Integration Innovation Process/Platform (RI2P) – Government Agile Asymmetric Acquisition (A3)

9. RI2P + A3 = Commercial Best COTS IT Practices Pragmatically Bounded by Government Constraints

10. Industrial Rapid Integration Innovation Process/Platform/People (RI2P*) Informed by – Many (!!) watchdog reports documenting failures of status quo government IT acquisition process – Agile, SOA, Cloud, Product Line Architecture (PLA), OSS, open standards, etc. – Government acquisition policy and culture Pioneered by open consortium of – IT Vendors – Integrators – Large & small companies Aims to apply commercial IT best practices to government enterprise information systems per new enlightened policy mandates *RI2P is a generic, unbranded, term

11. Government Agile Asymmetric Acquisition (A3) Informed by – Government acquisition policy and culture – Many (!!) watchdog reports documenting failures of status quo – Forward-leaning concepts & policies, e.g. DI2E, JIE, ICD 503, 6212.01F Pioneered by growing collaborative of – Operators – Policy makers – Test & certification authorities – Project offices Implements RI2P, i.e. a profoundly improved process, via “IT Box”* acquisition strategy

12. *IT Box = New DoD Policy for Acquiring IT per COTS Best Practice

13. RI2P Principles Success requires continuous feedback from operational customer Most government information system requirements can be satisfied with COTS solutions Best approach is rapid, evolutionary, integration of pre-integrated components Modular Open Segment Architecture – optimized for a particular community of capability providers and consumers -- can accommodate all the above

14. A3 Principles RI2P principles + … You get what you measure… – Measure operational impact* of capability… – Measure speed*-to-capability – Measure cost*-per-capability You get what you pay for… budget and contract for – Customer in the loop – Contract deliverables include achieving measured outcomes (per above) via interoperable components – Continuous, rapid, evolutionary improvement throughout lifecycle *Interoperability, i.e. runtime and build time reusability, is the key to all three!

15. A3 IT Box Acquisition Strategy Light Weight Governance Value-Based Acquisition Framework (Value-based Metrics + Open Segment Architecture + Agile Contracting + COTS Best Practice) Stable “IT Portfolio” Funding & Low Barrier Contracting Continuously Delivered, Off-the-Shelf, Easily Procured, Certified, Sustained, Capability Modules Business Case Analysis Incentives for Providers and Consumers of Off-the-Shelf Components

16. RI2P + A3 Features Broad solicitations that specify – Use cases that describes customer-based objectives – Tight continuous connection to operational customers – Modular Open Segment* Architecture optimized for use cases – Incentivizes for demonstrated value added via open standard solutions Agile, iterative, integration, test, and certification process Growing consortium of government, industry, and academia continuously improving all the above *Segments can be funded and executed independently, but integrate via disciplined enterprise standards and testing and certification processes

17. As-Is PlugFest Use Case Use Case identifies simulation problem PlugFest Simulation Conduct PlugFest Simulation to demonstrate capabilities to solve the Use Case Winner of Simulation The challenger who does the best job solving the problem while employing collaborative technologies wins the challenge Government and Industry recognizes winner RFP Government issues Requests for Proposal to solve problems laid out in critical use cases PlugFest Proposals Industry responds by demonstrating capabilities via persistent on- line test framework Proposals are live demos instead of written documents Government Awards Contract Government awards contract based on demonstrated capability To-Be PlugFest

18. RI2P + A3 Aligns with DI2E Use Cases

19. RI2P + A3 Aligns with DI2E Framework

20. How Can AFCEA Intel Committee Help? Critique the concept? Help establish the RI2P consortium? Design PlugFest events? – Trade shows? – Workshops? – Webex? Garner political support?