You are here

Technical note | The Vital Planning and Analysis (ViPA) ORBAT Data Service Architecture and Design Overview

Abstract

The Vital Planning and Analysis (ViPA) workbench is an automated logistics feasibility analysis tool used to support planning and logistics. ViPA makes use of Order of Battle (ORBAT) data as an input for its calculations. The ORBAT Data Service is a Web Service for storing force structures to be used by the ADF. The service is composed into what is known as a Service Oriented Architecture which provides a loose coupling of self-contained services. This architecture helps to provide a reusable, access controlled and resilient data source. This report describes the design of the ORBAT Data Service and how it is used to manage and share ORBAT data between tools such as ViPA.

Executive Summary

The Vital Planning and Analysis (ViPA) workbench is an automated logistics feasibility analysis tool used to support planning and logistics. ViPA makes use of Order of Battle (ORBAT) data as an input for its calculations. ORBATs describe the identification, strength, command structure, and disposition of the personnel, units, and equipment of a military force. They are complicated structures which are often captured in spreadsheets and maintained by various personnel over long periods of time in different levels of detail for a range of purposes. However, there was previously no authoritative, consolidated, shared source of ORBAT data in the Australian Defence Force (ADF).

The ORBAT Data Service was developed by the DST Group in 2008 to address requirements identified by the Logistics Planning Dedicated User Group (DUG) for modelling and sharing ORBAT data. The DUG was run and managed by Strategic Logistics Branch (SLB) for input, review and comment on the creation of user requirements for logistics operations planning tools. The ORBAT Data Service has since been deployed onto laptops that were taken into theatres overseas, installed on the Mission Secret Network (MSN) for Army exercises, and has been transitioned to the Defence Restricted Network (DRN) and the Defence Secret Network (DSN) by Defence project JP2030.

The ORBAT Data Service is a Web Service for storing force structures to be used by the ADF. Web Services are software used to share business logic and data across a network through application programming interfaces (APIs) using open standards to simplify sharing and reuse. The service is composed into what is known as a Service Oriented Architecture which provides a loose coupling of self-contained services. This architecture helps to achieve the design intent of the ORBAT Data Service to be a reusable, access controlled and resilient data source.

Part of the work in creating the service involved developing a data model for storing force structures and including the dynamic relationships between them. This included a solution for capturing the temporal dimension of force structures to represent changes in capability and force composition (e.g. unit rotations) over time. The data model caters for different types of ORBATs, namely generic capability bricks, force-in-being, hypothetical future forces, etc. Robust APIs were also designed to expose a powerful service that enables users to create, search, read, update and delete data models of ORBATS.

A comprehensive data management process was also designed and built into the service to support a rigorously managed collection of accurate, fit-for-purpose data with associated metadata.

ORBAT data services enable the Australian Defence Organisation to access authoritative ORBAT data using various applications in a number of domains including operations planning, logistics analysis and planning, joint movement and preparedness. It allows for different instances of an ORBAT data service to be set up to manage different types of data for actual operations, specific exercises, simulations, strategic analysis, training, etc. and it is also deployable for standalone use on laptops or on fixed and adhoc networks.

This report describes the design of the ORBAT Data Service and how it is used to manage

and share ORBAT data between tools such as ViPA.

Key information

Author

Kyran Lange

Publication number

DSTGroupTN1539

Publication type

Technical note

Publish Date

July 2016

Classification

Unclassified - public release

Keywords

Order of Battle; Strategic intelligence; Web services; Technology