Web
2.0 for the Enterprise Fast Gaining Altitude
in Aviation
By
Mike Shields, Chief Technology Officer,
ConceptSolutions
The
goal for the Federal Aviation Administration
(FAA) and the Joint Planning and Development
Office (JPDO) over the next 20 years, is to
create a more flexible, scalable, highly
automated system that can handle up to two
to three times today’s air traffic volume
and enhance safety while reducing fuel
consumption, noise and emissions.
New aircraft, new industry business
models, and skyrocketing levels of air
traffic have commercial and military
aviation officials working diligently to
revamp the nation’s air traffic management
system, and Enterprise Web 2.0, together
with other new technology upgrades, is
proving vital to these efforts.
Early
Test Underscores Need
Meeting
FAA’s and JPDO’s long-term objectives
has been made more challenging by the
persistent and growing daily demands placed
on the current system.
In November 2007, the White House
ordered steps to reduce air traffic
congestion and long airport delays during
the holiday travel season.
With this emergency move, the
nation’s commercial and restricted air
traffic management system was put to the
test, as well as the effectiveness of
coordination among the many government and
commercial players involved.
In
response to the President’s call to
action, the Pentagon opened unused military
and special use airspace (SUA), from Florida
to Maine, in order to create a commercial
airliner “express lane” during the
busiest days of Thanksgiving and Christmas
travel.
Although the overwhelming holiday
crowds never materialized, the process of
preparing the system to accommodate such
surges in air traffic again placed increased
focus on an important issue:
With some
models projecting the number of air
passengers to double or even triple by the
year 2025 (“Next Generation Air
Transportation System In Brief,” JPDO
publication, 6/21/07),how will the nation’s air
traffic system handle such explosive growth?
Web 2.0
Solutions in Aviation: The Future is Now
Fast
Forward writer Joe McKendrick pointed
out in a recent online column (Web
2.0-Enterprise 2.0 boundary, like work-life,
is getting blurry, 5/6/08) “There are
definitely clear distinctions between the
consumerist Web 2.0 services in play out
there, versus the tools and services
businesses are adopting. When technologies
or services are taken behind the firewall,
their purpose and requirements change, which
is to solve business problems.”
While
sharing the basic “network as platform”
characteristics of consumer Web 2.0, the
information systems that are being deployed
in the aviation industry to help modernize
air traffic management are much more robust
and secure, collaborative enterprise
applications tailored for solving
mission-critical problems.
“The
big question for many [businesses] on the
fence now is: 1) Do we now have the right
capabilities in terms of ready Enterprise
2.0 products? And 2) Do we generally
understand how to apply them properly to
obtain good returns on our investment in
them?” observed ZDNet blogger Dion
Hinchcliffe in his October 22, 2007, column.
With affirmative answers to both
those questions, the aviation industry has
embraced Enterprise Web 2.0 even as other
business sectors continue to weigh the
benefits against perceived risk.
The
Launch of MADE and SAMS
Demonstrating
Web 2.0’s short- and long-term viability
in aviation, FAA recently launched two major
systems vital to the overall safety and
security of the nation’s air traffic
infrastructure:
MADE (Military Airspace Data
Entry) and
SAMS (Special Use Airspace Management
System).
Both systems were developed with the
help of ConceptSolutions
(www.Concept-Solutions.com), a
Reston, Virginia-based information
management and technology consulting
company.
In December 2005, FAA’s Air Traffic
Office of System Operations Security began
the nationwide deployment of a new Military
Airspace Data Entry (MADE) system.
The MADE system is a key component in
the upgrade of FAA’s Military Operations
System (MILOPS), a real-time information
management gateway that offers online
airspace information to and facilitates
coordination among users in a variety of
government, military and civilian agencies,
including general and commercial aviation.
A
Web 2.0 application, MADE is an automated,
Web-based system that enables the U.S.
Department of Defense (DoD) and branches of
the military to safely and efficiently
schedule use of SUAs, Air Traffic Control
Assigned Airspace (ATCAA), and Military
Training Routes.
The MADE system dovetails with
FAA’s SUA Management System (SAMS) to
provide near real-time data for scheduling
usage of SUA, which includes, but is not
limited to, Military Operations Areas (MOA),
restricted areas, warning areas, prohibited
areas and alert areas.
In
March 2007, the MADE system drew outstanding
reviews from FAA officials in Anchorage,
Alaska.
“With
the rapidity of the Internet responses and
updating, MADE has significantly enhanced
real-time use of SUAs here,” said Greg
Sonnabend, MOS, Anchorage Air Route Traffic
Control Center (ARTCC).
“The new system also has helped
reduce the impact to non-military users,”
he added.
By bringing an underlying Web 2.0 technology
to bear for the FAA enterprise – i.e., Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX),
a way of building interactive
browser-based applications –
MADE enables:
- All
segments of the civil aviation community
to access military SUA schedules from a
central database, and determine when
SUA’s are available
- Improved
interagency collaboration between FAA,
DoD and other users of SUA
- Significant
travel and fuel efficiencies for
civilian users, while preserving the
priority of military and other special
government users
- MILOPS
to operate at significantly lower cost
with higher output.
Prior to MADE, the MILOPS system
required large, expensive rack servers
at every location and dedicated Sun
workstations to run critical
applications. The upgraded MADE and SAMS are now browser applications
that can run from any computer, which
eliminates the need for additional
hardware, increases efficiency, and
reduces costs.
- Best use of available resources,
including staff, system hardware, and
purchased software.
FAA,
DoD, ConceptSolutions and The MITRE
Corporation’s Center for Advanced Aviation
System Development (MITRE/CAASD)
collaborated to deploy the MADE capability
throughout the National Airspace System
(NAS).
MITRE/CAASD, the FAA’s Federally
Funded Research and Development Center, laid
the groundwork for developing and deploying
the MADE system with a series of SUA
research trials in Central Florida, Central
Texas and Ohio.
The trials involved several DoD
organizations, commercial and general
aviation airspace users, and FAA field
facility personnel.
From
the early stages of deployment, the new
scheduling system has delivered immediate
benefits, including increased public safety,
reduced commercial traffic delays, and
improved airline efficiencies through
reduced fuel costs.
Furthermore, the upgraded MADE and
SAMS, together, have satisfied the original
safety, efficiency, interagency coordination
and reporting objectives set forth by the
report on the joint review of special use
airspace dated October 1989, as directed by
Public Law 100-223.
After nearly 20 years searching for a
viable solution, FAA has taken significant
steps towards meeting the critical MILOPS
objectives:
- Provide
the most efficient use of US airspace
while ensuring maximum safety to users
- Improve
operations and provide maximum
coordination between DoD, FAA and
airspace users affected by SUA and other
special-purpose airspace operations
- Provide authoritative auditing
and reporting of actual US airspace
usage.
The
MADE system is now operational at 282
military SUA scheduling sites, and more than
450 MADE users across the country have been
trained – numbers that are expected to
continue growing over time.
A TURBO
Boost for Enterprise Web 2.0 Development
The
MADE and SAMS solutions were developed using
an Enterprise Web 2.0 platform called TURBO,
an
application development tool for creating
and running secure Web 2.0 Rich Internet
Applications (RIA). TURBO optimizes
the power of Oracle while empowering the
legions of PL/SQL (Procedural Language/Structured Query Language)
developers to build Web 2.0 rich
applications at lower cost and greater speed
than traditional enterprise custom
application development methodology.
The
TURBO development engine is a compiled
virtual, 3-tier architecture that contains
all components for enterprise solutions,
including security, user interface (UI)
renderings, stored business logic and
optimized performance.
In developing RIA for aviation
industry organizations, TURBO offers the
following advantages and features:
Advantages
-
Application
Security
-
Oracle
scalability
-
Rapid
development with smaller team
-
Built-in
process improvement reduces development
time & costs
-
Easily
embed code snippets from open source
library and tools
-
Application
code is data-aware
-
Runs
native in Oracle
-
Saves
operation and maintenance cost by
removing unnecessary middle tier
physical application layer.
