22 Apr 92.

Departed USAREUR AO for Washington, D.C.

Arrived D.C. 22 Apr 92

23 Apr.

0800 HRS. Located Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Center for Information Management (CIM) at Perpetual Building, Tysons Corner, VA, and coordinated with POC on schedule and technical support.

1000 HRS. Visited Army Sustaining Base Automation (SBA), Plans and Analysis, Ft. Belvoir, to check on job offer for Roebuck. Presented TAPES while there.

Mr. Paul Baker and Ms. Cherie Smith had heard of TAPES were highly enthusiastic of it after its presenation. Ms. Smith, a software engineer, had commented on the highly intuitive interface and structure of TAPES and the elegance of the prototype's design. They had recommended that TAPES serve as the framework from which MISMs and ISMs be built. On this basis they recommended that TAPES be shown to the Army Data Management organization, the Army Director of Management, and DISC4 Architecture's COL Bartz. They coordinated with COL Bartz for a meeting that afternoon at 1600.

1200 HRS. Departed SBA, Plans and Analysis.

1400 HRS. Arrived DISC4, Architecture, Pentagon for meeting with COL Bartz.

Met staffers in Architecture: MAJ Grobmier, MAJ Gambrell, Mr. Nelson, and Ms. Letmanyi. Gave overview of TAPES to MAJs Grobmier and Gambrell.

MAJ Grobmier provided a copy of licenced software using the IDEF1X data modeling methodology and symbology for Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE). This software has since been loaded on the TAPES CPU in DCSIM Architecture. Software registration has been submitted to manufacturer.

1600 HRS. Met with COL Bartz and presented TAPES.

He was favorably impressed and said that he would test TAPES in a MACOM after development by software engineers. He stated that TAPES satisfied an effort that he had halted a year earlier due to lack of clear concept as to how to proceed. We recommended TAPES as a method to manage the IRM and CIM programs.

He was concerned with the complexity of implementing TAPES within an organization, and of its perceived utility to other HQDA agencies. Mr. Roebuck related that TAPES could be implemented in a phased manner by initiating TAPES as an online Organization Directory, Office Locator, and Phone Directory. After a brief time, Functions and Activities, and then hand receipt information (materiel and information technology Configurations) could be linked to the offices in the earlier directory. Further functionality could be added by adding more resource Configurations into the Directory, such as Personnel Configurations or Business Information Configurations (Software Units and Data Elements) and by further decomposing the extant object classes down to more and more detailed levels. In this way the investment in TAPES would not outpace its perceived benefit, while providing a solid base from which to implement its full functionality over time.

Provided a copy of the TAPES source code, Functional Description, and briefing charts to MAJ Gambrell.

[Note: MAJ Gambrell later indicated in a telephone conversation that he was recommending TAPES to the Deputy DISC4 as a potential method for managing the Army's Geographic/Technical Architecture.]

24 Apr.

0800 HRS. Returned to SBA, Plans and Analysis. Provided TAPES source code, Functional Description, and briefing charts to Cherie Smith.

1100 HRS. Departed SBA.

1300 HRS. Arrived DISA CIM. POC assisted in setting up briefing room.

1400 HRS. Briefing commenced. Twelve persons attended from the DISA CIM staff. Highly detailed questions.

Many perceived immediate utility. Several comments regarding their earlier attempts at creating management model and resource model, which did not succeed due to the incompleteness and awkwardness of their underlying conceptual framework. The concept of hierarchical object classes; the ideas of putting all resource-types into a Configuration Object Class and the planning and inventory quantities into the Resource Object Class; the idea of creating and maintaining associations (Cross-Index) between individual objects as the corporate management repository; and the idea of using the hierarchical object classes (TAPES Catalog) as a Table of Contents to Activity Software Units as in the Life Cycle Management module of TAPES, were seen as breakthroughs in the development of an Information Architecture. They were also highly lauditory of the basic analysis and design of the prototype. In response to one series of questions, Mr. Roebuck had recommend that a full implementation of TAPES use a graphical user interface which could include the functionality of a Geographic Information System, A Computer Aided Design and Network Topology/Management System, and various data visualization and analysis tools.

One late arrival to the briefing asked questions from the perspective of TAPES being a functional application, such as a payroll system. He wanted to know the details as far as the storage requirements, the type of CPU and speed TAPES required, and what type of programming language was used. He also stated that the data storage requirements for TAPES would equal all of the existing data storage capacity of the DoD.

On the first point we reiterated that TAPES was not being presented as an application, but rather as a proof of a management concept by which the IRM and CIM programs could be implemented, as well as serving as a total corporate transaction and analysis data model for corporate management. The perspective that was maintained by the briefers during all of the TAPES presentations was that TAPES represents a Requirement Statement of what type of system is required to manage the Information Resource Management and Corporate Information Management programs of the Army and DoD, from a USAREUR perspective. This requirement statement took the form of a actual RS submitted through channels, a Functional Description of the requirement, and an operational prototype of how the requirement could be satisfied from a software engineering perspective. We did emphasize that TAPES could be built in almost any relational database management system, probably using SQL, and could be programmed in Ada, "C", or dBase IV, as we had done. That was a matter for the developer and program manager to decide. We indicated that because of the underlying data structure of TAPES in the relational model, TAPES exhibited some functionality from each of the hierarchical, network, relational, and object-oriented data base concepts.

On the second point we acknowledged that the data storage requirements for TAPES would indeed be large, but that would in all likelihood decrease the total DoD data storage and transmission requirments because it would aid in the elimination of multiple copies of the same data being maintained in excessively redundant forms. It would also be feasible to annually distribute higher levels of the master TAPES data, which is not subject to frequent change, to field locations on Compact Disks or other mass distribution media, with major changes being distributed in more expediant forms. In this way, only local transactions, consolidations of transaction data, the results of analysis, and interim top-fed changes need be transmitted or maintained on local and centralized storage.

A key point that was stressed during this presentation was the significant increase in speed of operations and responsiveness to change for the DoD that could be achieved with TAPES.

Mr. Denis Brown, the Director of DISA CIM, and the executive who had requested the TAPES briefing asked questions regarding how he could make TAPES appeal to a functional proponent, such as the HQDA Engineer, so that they would see a benefit and want to maintain their portion of the TAPES data structure. We reinterated the comments on phased implementation given to COL Bartz the previous day. Also indicated that by maintaining their portion of the TAPES object classes, the functional proponents would be able to consolidate much of the functional data which is currently maintained in multiple, disjointed tables and files, and which are not integrated. TAPES provides that functional (vertical) integrating environment, which benefits individual functional proponents. It also provides an inter-functional (horizontal) integrating environment, to satisfy the needs of corporate management.

1600 HRS. Briefing completed. As we were departing, several of the DISA CIM attendees were discussing how to take their current data tables and load them into TAPES. Provided copies of TAPES source Code, Functional Description, and briefing charts to Ms. Jo Tate of DISA CIM.