OPINION AN INTEROPERABILITY ROAD MAP FOR C4ISR LEGACY SYSTEMS

The Department of Defense (DoD) has made tremendous interoperability gains over the last few years. Unfortunately, without a way to assess the status of interoperability throughout the department, it is difficult to quantify this progress. Although interoperability issues are persistent and visible, the number of interoperability successes is easily overlooked. Most systems developed today meet the interoperability requirements that were specified in their operational requirements documents (ORDs). The application of a set of metrics addressing this domain would shed more light on the situation and highlight the successes of the many agencies that have labored to produce interoperable systems. Effective metrics would enable the services and agencies to make informed decisions about the allocation of scarce resources to solve interoperability in already fielded systems. T he pejorative use of the term “legacysystem ” often occurs when commu-nications and computer systems are described. This is unfortunate because many fielded systems are performing well and meeting or exceeding their original specifications. “C4ISR ” refers to systems that are par