Modernizing the U.S. Air Force Base Level Automation System (1981) / Chapter Skim
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3 Trends Affecting the Base Level Automation Program
3 Trends Affecting the Base Level Automation Program
Pages 20-38
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From page 20... ...
Changes in the pattern of costs have brought about the development of specialized computers and their supporting software. Examples are Intelligent terminals that permit relatively untrained users to enter data or frame queries, and "front end," or communications, processors that facilitate the operation of systems having multiple terminals or processors.
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From page 21... ...
With the decreasing costs and increasing capabilities of computer hardware has come strong pressure to reduce the labor costs and time delays involved in writing programs. The art of program design has matured.
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From page 22... ...
2 . DATA BAS E MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS Over the last few years, the data processing industry has developed systems that use specialized data base management techniques and software.
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From page 23... ...
centralized control over data descriptions by data administrators; and (4) compatible inquiry and retrieval languages that can specify a variety of logical operations and output formats, thereby permitting nonspecialists to write simple retrieval and reporting programs for their particular requirements.
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From page 24... ...
Some of these techniques are at present only partially developed, but they are certain to receive a great deal more attention in the future development of DBMS software. For the purposes of the Base Level Automation Program, data base management systems can greatly reduce programming and maintenance costs.
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From page 25... ...
Voice and data equipment are easily connected and accessed from any point in the system, and are readily linked to external telephone networks. Although limited to data transfer rates typical of terminal devices, a modern PABX is easily implemented and can share its investment costs with a voice system.
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From page 26... ...
5. THE DISPERSAL OF PROCESSING POWER With computers available in a wide range of sizes and speeds, with a variety of convenient terminal devices, and with facilities for communicating among these under computer control, organizations can fashion automated data processing systems to fit their operational and organizational requirements.
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From page 27... ...
In the future, greater dispersal even at a single air base may prove economical and operationally desirable. Figure 1 illustrates a model automated data processing system embodying these principles of dispersal or distribution, keyed to the hierarchical structure of a manufacturing organization or, in a parallel display, to operations at an air base.
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From page 28... ...
Machine I nstrument Test, Control, Control, or Terminals , Terminals LOCAL LOCAL ALL LEVELS: Integrity of data, good recovery and restart, high information transfer rates. FIGURE 1 I ncreasing: Complexity of Data Complexity of Calculations
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From page 29... ...
These few suggestions illustrate the many ways in which the Base Level Automation System may well extend its services. Nevertheless, the system's structure will continue to need centralized host data processing, even where many computing elements already function.
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From page 30... ...
While computer hardware costs have dropped sharply, there has not been a corresponding sharp decrease in the cost of producing computer programs. Programming costs have risen more rapidly than the rate of general inflation and in many systems are several times more than the hardware costs.
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From page 31... ...
The important point is that techniques for structuring and organizing complex computer programs and approaches for managing the teams and organizations to develop them have progressed significantly throughout the 1970s. Organizations that have been in program development for longer than a decade or so tend to remember the old ways of doing things and may not actively exploit the most productive new ways to conceptualize and structure complex programs.
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From page 32... ...
It not only allows him to communicate more directly with the machine, but it also supports him with a wide variety of aids that take care of some programming details automatically, check for mistakes, and facilitate searabes for other errors that are latent in the programs. Thus, the Air Force Data Systems Design Center, a large, professional, systems developmetn organization, needs the most modern software development facilities available for its personnel.
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From page 33... ...
Source code control commands that permit successive versions of source program modules to be controlled, maintained, and retrieved, so that every change can be accounted for and linked to version numbers of released systems. Computers that handle the normal day-to-day operational workload frequently lack features that are essential to a high-guality program development environment.
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From page 34... ...
Thus, there are aspects of proliferating small stand-alone computer systems that could create problems for the Air Force unless some level of overall control is maintained. A possible technique for this, and for leadership from the Air Force Data Systems Design Center, is to have the Center make prototype designs, for widespread use at all appropriate bases, from small-system designs developed by local users.
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From page 35... ...
Just as computers relieved people from the drudgery and limitations of manual arithmetic, so too can office automation relieve the drudgery and limitations of many clerical tasks. It not only improves the productivity of clerical
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From page 36... ...
During a military action, motivations will be reoriented toward such things as overall effectiveness, quick turnaround of sorties, maximum availability of aircraft, and prompt maintenance. Information flows -- who transmits what data to whom, and why -- are very likely to change correspondingly.
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From page 37... ...
A wartime equivalent or substitute for that system, implemented on an appropriate system that is transportable and survivable, would probably be justified because of its value to the operational readiness of a deployed combat wing. Other wartime contingency measures being undertaken by the Air Force include the following: A comprehensive analysis, managed by the Air Force Data Systems Design Center, to examine contingency planning requirements in Europe, the Pacific, and the Tactical Air Command (for rapid deployment force requirements)
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From page 38... ...
Although the Committee has not pursued this matter further, it must strongly recommend that the Air Force conduct comprehensive planning to assure the adequacy of the base-level system to wartime as well as peacetime operations.
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