LT. GEN. ALBERT EDMONDS MAKES NETWORK WORLD'S TOP 25 MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE IN NETWORKING

Network World magazine recently nominated Lt. Gen. Albert Edmonds, head of the Defense Information Systems Agency and manager of National Communications Systems for the Department of Defense, in the Top 25 Most Powerful People in Networking. Network World ranked the Top 25 according to the following categories: Power of the Purse, Power of Vision, Power of Market Presence, Power over Technology, and Power of Partners.

Edmonds, who is responsible for command, control, communications, computer and intelligence (C4I) support for all U.S. troops, is currently overseeing a substantial upgrade to Defense Department communications. The Defense Information Infrastructure (DII) is a critical component of national security, and voice, video, data and multimedia. The upgrade may include construction of a private Asynchronous Transfer Mode backbone net which could run to $5.5 billion. According to Warren Suss, president of Warren H. Suss Associates, "[the upgrade will] determine the future of networks, because what happens under [Edmonds'] watch will have a dramatic effect on the industry."

According to the article, Edmonds is particularly concerned with the Defense Messaging System and is pushing for extensions to X.400 and X.500 to get the robustness, protection and authentication the Defense Department requires for person-to-person communications and communications from commanders.

SOURCE:
Borsook, Paulina, Network World, Dec. 25, 1995 - Jan. 1, 1996.

Ada 95 BINDINGS PRESERVE GCCS INVESTMENT

The following article has been re-printed, in its entirety, from the STARS Newsletter.

One of the DoD's thrusts to reduce the cost of creating, owning and operating Command and Control (C2) systems is the Global Command and Control System (GCCS) block 1 common core services. These software services, in essence, are a library of middleware functions that are common to many C2 systems. The services of this middleware are implemented as an infrastructure on top of UNIX and X-Windows/Motif. This approach permits and encourages reuse of software components and portability of source code across heterogeneous computer platforms.

The services in this library are currently only available to application software that call them as C language services. This language constraint makes it costly to port Ada applications, or to develop new applications using the GCCS middleware. To address this problem, Intermetrics and Boeing joined forces to:

• Combine ProtoTech and STARS technology to provide a set of Ada 95 bindings for the GCCS common core services.

• Develop a proof-of-concept demonstration using these bindings by converting a C application that uses the GCCS core services to the Ada 95 language, proving that it operates as it did before the transition.

• Collect metrics that will provide insight into the comparative characteristics of an identical application in the C programming language and Ada 95, and providing early identification of issues moving to Ada 95.

Work has commenced on this task and progress to date is promising. Boeing installed and began to use the GNU Ada 95 compiler (from NYU), and Intermetrics successfully created bindings to the GCCS X-Windows/Motif routines. A test application (SITMAP) was obtained and will be used to validate the binding as they are created. These bindings will be available in early 1996.

SOURCE:
Fung, Casey, "Ada 95 Bindings Preserve Global Command and Control System Investment," STARS Newsletter, December, 1995: 18-19.

Ada 95 QUALITY AND STYLE GUIDE AVAILABLE FROM THE AdaIC

The Software Productivity Consortium Quarterly recently offered a pointer to the AdaIC in its column on the Ada 95 Quality and Style: Guidelines for Professional Programmers. It informed readers that the guide is available from the AdaIC through anonymous ftp or via the AdaIC Web page, http://sw-eng.falls-church.va.us

The Ada 95 Quality and Style Guide offers Ada programmers a set of specific guidelines for using the powerful features of Ada in a disciplined manner to develop code with high degrees of readability, portability and reusability. The guide is also available from the Software Productivity Consortium Clearinghouse, call (703) 742-7211 or send e-mail to "ask-spc@software.org".

SOURCE:
"Consortium Delivers Ada 95 Quality and Style to AJPO, Members," Software Productivity Consortium Quarterly, December, 1995 (Vol.9, No.2): 14.

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The AdaIC's "Ada News Summaries" is a compilation of summaries from Ada-related articles in trade magazines, newsletters and press releases. The AdaIC welcomes suggestions for and pointers to Ada-related articles.

Contact the AdaIC at:

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