4-page Case Study - Posted 10/6/2006

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Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command

Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command Developers Quickly Create Military Weather Observation SOA Application, Improve Safety

CSSI provides software and systems engineering solutions for government entities such as the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and the United States Armed Forces. The U.S. Navy, a CSSI customer, needed to develop a new real-time remote weather observation system that would improve flight safety and reduce costs. CSSI and the Navy used Microsoft® Visual Studio® Team System and the .NET Framework to quickly deliver a solution that automatically collects weather data from remote unattended weather instruments. Users interactively access this data on a variety of devices. As a result, the Navy can redeploy staff members who were previously responsible for manually collecting weather data. The automated data collection improves the timeliness and accuracy of weather data and contributes to increased flight safety for naval aviators.
   
    
   

Situation

CSSI is a Microsoft® Certified Partner that creates software applications for large government organizations. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., CSSI specializes in air traffic management and other IT solutions for U.S. government customers such as the Federal Aviation Administration, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and departments within the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Navy.

Prior to this application, the forecasters had to call up the air base the pilots wanted to fly to and ask what the weather was like. But now, they only need to enter a URL into a browser on their computer. Tony Camacho Project Lead for Web Services and Support CSSI

“The Navy was starting to regionalize its weather forecasters by placing them in cen¬tral locations,” says John Markey, Director of Information Management and Navy Programs at CSSI. “However, those forecasters could not guarantee the safety of flights if they didn’t have up-to-the-minute weather data for each flight destination. That’s when SPAWAR asked us to find a way to build a remote weather observer solution that all the fore¬casters and pilots could view.”

Realizing the project’s complexity, CNMOC nevertheless needed the solution to be built very quickly and within a tight budget. “CNMOC wanted something up and running in only a few months,” says Tony Camacho, Project Lead for Web Services and Support at CSSI.

Solution

After working for less than one month on developing an application, CSSI and SPAWAR created the Remote Observer Display (ROD). The application was developed using the Microsoft Visual Studio® Team System development system and the Microsoft .NET Framework version 2.0, a set of developer tools and technologies that enables developers to build and connect software applications. Internet Information Services version 6.0 provides the application’s supporting infrastructure.

The ROD application uses those technologies to integrate weather observation data gathered from remote weather sensors. It then displays that data in XML form and sends it to a Web service created in Microsoft ASP.NET, a part of the .NET Framework that provides technology for building powerful Web applications. A Web service is a stan¬dardized way of integrating multiple online Web applications for the purpose of data exchange. Finally, the Web service sends the weather forecast data to a Microsoft SQL Server™ 2005 database.

“CNMOC wanted to use a data-gathering machine that was more than 100 miles away from the test site it needed to monitor,” says Markey. “So we procured modems, much like those found in point-of-sale applications, that work with the actual monitoring devices. The modems have dial-up and cellular capabilities for use in the remote areas that don’t have phone lines or Ethernet.”

The ROD application was deployed at SPAWAR in Charleston, South Carolina, in early 2006.

Benefits

The comprehensive functionality provided by the .NET Framework, in conjunction with the set of integrated tools in Visual Studio Team System, resulted in improved developer productivity, fast time-to-market, and reduced development costs. The resulting application provided CNMOC with a more accurate forecasting method that could improve safety and lead to millions of dollars in savings.

More Accurate Weather Forecasting for Naval Aviators

The ROD application gives CNMOC a much more reliable method of forecasting weather conditions for military flight operations. “Prior to this application, the forecasters had to call up the air base the pilots wanted to fly to and ask what the weather was like. But now, they only need to enter a URL into a browser on their computer, and they can see all that data,” says Winter. “It gives them a much more accurate view of the weather at a par¬ticular airfield. The Navy can now view current weather conditions at a bombing range 150 miles away. They couldn’t do that before.”

Easy Development

Because the .NET Framework is integrated with Visual Studio Team System and ASP.NET, the CSSI and SPAWAR developers benefited from a complete, integrated environment that made development much simpler. “That integration gave us the ability to reuse certain tools. Once we created a Web service in the .NET Framework 2.0, for example, we could use that same Web service for the Microsoft .NET Compact Framework. That sort of agility made our job much easier,” says Camacho.

We had the application up and running in about three weeks…. The Microsoft .NET technology made all that happen. Tony Camacho Project Lead for Web Services and Support CSSI

Another aspect of using Visual Studio Team System is that Microsoft, through MSDN®, the Microsoft Developer Network, provides detailed development and architectural guidance. MSDN Enterprise Library is a library of application blocks designed to assist developers with common enterprise develop¬ment challenges. “MSDN Enterprise Library gives developers common blocks of code that can be used for certain design patterns,” says Camacho. “We followed those as processes, and they became our focal point.”

Reduced Development Costs

CSSI and SPAWAR reduced costs by developing the ROD application using Microsoft Visual Studio Team System, which includes tools for architects, developers, and testers all in one collaborative development environment. “It worked like a ‘one-stop shop’ for us in terms of application creation,” says Camacho.

“Because we were able to build the whole thing on Visual Studio Team System, we didn’t have to purchase any licenses for third-party tools such as testing,” adds Markey. “We saved a lot on labor costs just by having that smaller development team.” In fact, testing applications can be costly, but the tools in Visual Studio gave the developers a way to quickly test the application before it was deployed. “Everything costs much more to fix after an application is in operation; these tools allowed us to fix problems before the launch,” says Markey.

Fast Time-to-Market

Because of the easy development process, Camacho and the other developers were able to quickly deploy the ROD application well within the deadline imposed by CNMOC. “We had the application up and running in about three weeks,” he says. “Not long after that, we had developed a version of the application that runs on a handheld device. The Microsoft .NET technology made all that happen.”

Operational Cost Savings for the Navy

The ROD application will reduce operating costs for CNMOC in the future, Winter says, because 22 weather forecasters in the United States will no longer be needed as fore¬casters and will be able to be deployed closer to combat operations. “This system will even¬tually give the Navy the ability to redeploy the people who are entering the data into the system,” he says. “Those people will be able to perform tasks that are much more vital to the Navy as a whole, such as other data-gathering duties on ships.”

By no longer spending money on having weather forecasters stationed remotely, the Navy might also be able to save millions of dollars per year in salary and hardware main¬tenance costs, Winter says. “Cost savings are an important part of doing business for the military today, particularly with so many resources being directed to the war on terror,” says Winter. “The ROD application will definitely provide the Navy with a way to reduce costs while increasing its overall efficiency.”

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to: www.microsoft.com

For more information about CSSI products and services, call (202) 863-2175 or visit the Web site at:
www.cssiinc.com

For more information about the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command products and services, visit the Web site at: enterprise.spawar.Navy.mil
 
Microsoft .NET Framework

Microsoft .NET Framework is software that connects people, information, systems, and devices through the use of Web services. Web services are a combination of protocols that enable computers to work together by exchanging messages. Web services are based on the standard protocols of XML, SOAP, and WSDL, which allow them to interoperate across platforms and pro¬gramming languages.

.NET is integrated across Microsoft products and services, providing the ability to quickly build, deploy, manage, and use connected, secure solutions with Web services. These solutions provide agile business integration and the promise of information anytime, anywhere, on any device.

For more information about Microsoft .NET and Web services, please visit these Web sites:
www.microsoft.com/net
msdn.microsoft.com/webservices

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