SISTO: A proposal for serverless information services for tactical operations

Lower echelon forces face significant barriers in utilizing increasingly available networked resources. Network access at the tactical edge continues to present significant problems of limited bandwidth, disruption, and other constraints. Simultaneously, there is an ever-increasing set of video streams, imagery, intelligence, and live reports available on both tactical edge and upper echelon networks. Systems and applications supporting warfighters must therefore address both the problems of highly constrained networks and the problem of the potentially overwhelming volume of dynamic resources and content. These challenging issues continue to defy easy solution, and so, in this paper, we propose a novel design for server-less information services for stressed and discontinuously available, low bandwidth tactical networks. We design SISTO as a middleware software solution. SISTO is characterized by three major capabilities: a) Semantics-based service and resource discovery with powerful search and browse capabilities, enabling users and service-oriented applications to be notified of opportunistically available information and services, and locate necessary resources, b) Efficient, distributed content distribution mechanisms adapted from peer-to-peer file sharing and torrent protocol for downloading and sharing large data objects such as imagery, video clips, maps, and intelligence datasets over poorly connected, low bandwidth, wireless networks, while opportunistically taking advantage of temporarily available high performing connectivity and c) Server-less proxies and gateways for enterprise applications, enabling tactical edge warfighters to connect to and participate in data sharing, and other capabilities without server infrastructure, while interoperating with users at higher echelons using standard enterprise applications and tools. We plan to implement SISTO in the near future, and report on how it performs relative to the design goals stated in this paper.