Author Contact InformationMarshall R. Potter [email protected] |
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The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) operates the Nation's air traffic control system and regulates aviation safety, security and the U.S. commercial space industry. In its position on the front line of aviation safety, the FAA works with the air transportation industry, other agencies at the Federal, state, and local level, the academic community, and with its international counterparts. The goal of this wide-ranging collaboration is to provide a technically advanced airspace system that meets the highest attainable levels of safety, security and efficiency.
Information technology plays a central role in all areas of the FAA mission from the management of the safe and efficient flow of aircraft through the nation's airspace, to carrying out aggressive security measures to protect air travelers from acts of terrorism and criminal misconduct to the speeding the transition of the next generation of air traffic control technology. Information technology provides the core technology from which all aspects of the FAA's mission are accomplished. It is without question, that the FAA has been transformed into an information-centric agency where improvements in the IT infrastructure are necessary to meet the ever increasing requirements and demands of increased growth in air travel and transport throughout the world.
The FAA team now includes almost 50,000 employees concentrated in six strategically focused lines of business (LOBs). These include Air Traffic Services (ATS), Regulation and Certification (AVR), Civil Aviation Security (ACS), Airports (ARP), Research and Acquisitions (ARA), and Commercial Space Transportation (AST).
ATS provides an integrated set of services to ensure that each aircraft operation is safe from the time pilots begin pre-flight activities until they shut down aircraft at their destination. Air traffic controllers at local airports direct airplanes that are taking off, landing, or flying within the visual range of their tower. Controllers in terminal radar control (TRACON) facilities handle aircraft for one or more airports in a large metropolitan area. Controllers at 21 air route traffic control centers (ARTECC) guide airplanes in flight from one city to another. Flight Service Stations (FSS) provide flight plan filing, weather data, and aeronautical information briefings to pilots. On a typical day, FAA controllers will handle over 200,000 takeoffs and landings, moving almost 2 million passengers. Services are available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. In 1998, the FAA established the Free Flight Phase 1 (FFP1) program to speed the deployment of automation and decision making tools that will increase systems safety and capacity and bring benefits to users in the form of fuel and crew cost savings. These include tools to aid controllers in aircraft sequencing, conflict detection, and collaborative decision making. These tools are being introduced incrementally at selected locations. As can be seen, the FAA's Air Traffic Service LOB is one of the largest, most complex and critical infrastructures developed and managed by the Federal Government.
Regulations and Certification (AVR) oversees the safety of planes and the credentials and competency of pilots and mechanics, develops mandatory safety rules, and sets high standards for civil aviation. Each year the FAA performs more than 347,000 inspections and investigations and takes approximately 12,000 enforcement actions, helping to make air travel among the safest modes of transportation available today. Two on-going efforts, Safer Skies and the Air Transportation Oversight Systems (ATOS) are designed to raise the bar on safety. Safer Skies is a focused data-driven program that attempts to find the root cause of accidents and then targets resources to find and apply the right interventions. ATOS complements Safer Skies and provides a new oversight approach that uses system safety principles and systematic processes to assure that air carriers have safety built into their operating systems. ATOS will allow inspectors to quantify and document both air carrier system weaknesses and best practices. This will allow inspections to be targeted to specific air carrier requirements and will increase the value of information provided from surveillance. ATOS will lead to a more collaborative partnership with the air carriers to identify and correct safety related issues.
The Civil Aviation Security LOB works with local, national and international security, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies to protect passengers, personnel, aircraft, and critical national airspace facilities against terrorist and other criminal acts. Threats are monitored continuously and, when necessary, the FAA orders heightened precautions. Current R&D in the development of new and innovated trace detection and explosive detection devices are on-going with vendors from across the world.
The Airports LOB, like the airlines, are vital links in the air transportation network. The FAA works in partnership with airport authorities, local units of government, metropolitan planning organizations, and states to revitalize and expand the Nation's airports. As part of its safety oversight mission, the FAA certifies airports serving air carrier operations and inspects those airports for compliance with established safety criteria.
The Research and Acquisitions LOB conducts research and invests in essential infrastructure to meet the demands for higher levels of safety, security, capacity and efficiency. Research priorities include explosive detection, weather, aircraft structures, noise mitigation, human factors, satellite navigation and information systems security. Additionally, the FAA is in the midst of several major acquisitions to modernize the Nation's air traffic control (ATC) system.
The Commercial Space Transportation LOB licenses commercial space launches and sites to protect public health and safety of property.
In the articles that follow, you will find initiatives of the Assistant Administrator for Information Services and Chief Information Officer of the FAA. Under the capable leadership of Dr. Daniel Mehan the Associate Administrator and Dr. Arthur Pyster his Deputy, the FAA has made rapid progress in improving its business practices and processes, improvement in its Information Systems Security (ISS) program and the definition of an Information Technology Architecture with major efforts focused on ISS, Data and Technical architectures. The Office of the Administrator for Information Services and Chief Information Officer consists of three Divisions (Information Analysis, Process Engineering, and Information Management), the FAA's Software Engineering Resource Center (SERC), the Office for Information Systems Security and the Office of the Chief Scientist for Information Technology.
The Information Analysis Division (AIO-100) is currently involved in implementing portfolio management as a technique to evaluate and select what will be in the FAA capital investment portfolio. This technique is a "best practices" technique currently in wide use among information rich industries to enable their management to make prudent investment decisions. Additionally, the Information Analysis Division is also implementing a new FAA Business Plan. Working with FAA's customers and the aviation industry, the agency's senior managers are crafting a business plan that is both business-oriented and reflects their vision of the future for aviation and space transportation. The plan's purpose is to align the agency's spending with its strategic imperatives.
The Process Engineering Division (AIO-200) is developing mechanisms to identify, enhance, and promote the adoption throughout the agency of the best applicable information technology processes, practices, and tools. In cooperation with lines of business, Process Engineering develops and helps implement plans that maximize the effective use of IT in meeting agency business needs. It focuses on activities that cut across lines of business with special emphasis on those activities that have the most impact on the agency's ability to meet its business goals. Three key projects of AIO-200 include;
The first three papers that are included in this special issue of DoD Software Tech News provide more details on these three initiatives.
The Information Management Division (AIO-300) is focused in the following areas: Implementation of the Data Management Strategy, the development of agency Information Technology policy and plans, the Implementation of the FAA Metadata Repository, the implementation of an Internet monitoring program, the exploration of the opportunities for an agency-wide Directory Services supporting FAA's initiatives to establish a public key infrastructure (PKI) and the exploration of Information Technology opportunities that are agency wide and have the potential for significant return on investment (e.g. Next Generation Messaging Requirements).
The Office of Information Systems Security (AIS) provides policy, oversight and support to the FAA across the entire organization and has the difficult task to work with the LOBs to facilitate that adequate Information Systems Security (ISS) is integrated into new acquisitions and at the same time assure that ISS needs of current legacy systems are also provided. A fourth paper has been included in this special issue to address the FAA's approach to ISS and the meaning of trustworthiness as it is seen within the FAA.
The Software Engineering Resource Center (SERC), located at the William J. Hughes Technical Center in Atlantic City, NJ, provides the technical and engineering support to AIO for software engineering issues. Currently, the SERC is focused on developing an Adaptation Improvement Program for all aspects of the National Airspace System (NAS).
The Office of the Chief Scientist for Information Technology serves as a catalyst, information resource and leader of the FAA's IT R&D efforts. The Chief Scientist, working in close interaction with all the different components of AIO and the LOBs, is striving to enhance all IT aspects of the FAA.
The following articles provide a glimpse of the many on-going FAA IT initiatives. The article by Dr. Linda Ibrahim describes the FAA's approach to integrated process improvement. The FAA developed the FAA-iCMM in 1997 to guide improvement of its software engineering, systems engineering, management, and acquisition processes in an integrated, effective, and efficient manner. Today, the FAA-iCMM is being used by all the LOBs and is the corner stone of all FAA process improvement efforts.
The article by Iraj Hirmanpour, Soheil Khajenoori, Thomas Hilburn, and Richard Turner discusses a major accomplishment in defining a Software Engineering Body of Knowledge. This effort was one of the first comprehensive efforts to define what software engineers need to know to do their jobs. The paper offers an overview of the comprehensive categorization that the SwE-BOK project has accomplished to date.
The article by Ronald Stroup on Application of Software Assurance best practices provides a glimpse into the FAA's software safety and assurance efforts as they apply to communications, navigation, surveillance and air-traffic management systems. The paper provides a summary of how software assurance and safety techniques are being integrated into the overall FAA system safety assessment process.
The final article, by Dr. Daniel Mehan, the FAA's CIO, and myself provides a glimpse at the role of Information Systems Security (ISS) and meaning of trustworthiness as it is viewed within the FAA. In this article, we define a holistic approach to ISS and provide multiple views into how the FAA is attempting to solve this critical problem. At the end of this article, we propose that the priority that you assign to your goals or functions, in this case the five levels of security defined by the cyber pyramid, not only impacts, but strongly defines the ultimate structure of the information systems security architecture (ISSA). Organizations such as the FAA that do not have strong needs for confidentiality and access control, as do many DoD organizations, may find more effective and efficient architectures for meeting their specific ISS needs that focus first on obtaining availability and integrity of the integrated systems.
I hope that you will enjoy reading about these FAA initiatives If you would like to know more about FAA IT initiatives and how AIO is attempting to improve the safety, security and efficiency of the airspace, I recommend that you contact the authors and look at the FAA AIO web pages at www.faa.gov/aio/
Marshall Potter is the Technical Advisor and Chief Scientist for Information Technology at the FAA working directly for the Associate Administrator for Information Technology and the Chief Information Officer (CIO). In this position, he is responsible for providing expert technical and scientific advice and guidance on all aspects of information technology with special emphasis on information security and assurance, information management, process engineering, and information architectures. In the area of Information Security and Assurance, he is currently directing the FAA's PDD-63 (Critical Infrastructure Protection) R,E&D program and is leading the FAA effort to use Common Criteria Protection Profiles in large system acquisitions.
Prior to coming to the FAA in March 2000, Marshall was the Special Assistant for Computing and Software Technologies in the office of the Director, Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E) within the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). In that position, Marshall provided strategic and day-to-day oversight on the DoD Information Technology Science and Technology Program covering a wide range of R&D areas. Marshall was also the author of the Information Superiority chapter of the Year 2000 Joint Warfighter Science and Technology Plan (JWSTP). Marshall was a recipient of the Defense Exceptional Civilian Service Award in 2000. Mr. Potter has over 30 years experience within the Federal Government.
Marshall is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University College, University of Maryland in College Park, MD where he has taught courses in Operating Systems Theory, Computer Systems Architecture and Software Engineering for over 15 years. He did both his undergraduate and graduate work in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Maryland. Marshall has been a member of the IEEE and ACM since 1970 and is also a member of Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu, Omicron Delta Kappa and Phi Eta Sigma honoraries.
Author Contact InformationMarshall R. Potter [email protected] |
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