Global Information Network Architecture

Global Information Network Architecture (GINA) is a computer software model which is designed to provide a new type of Global Information Grid (GIG) for US security and warfare Net-Centric Operations. A GINA team was convened in 2004 under a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California. The project was called Network Aware Business Data Management System (NABDMS). In late 2008, the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and the Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) began a second phase of the project. GINA was developed to become a High Level Architecture (HLA) for System Fusion Networks (SFN) as an interoperable and multi-level security ("MLS") engine.Through the use of Vector Relational Data Modelling (VRDM), GINA is a non-algorithmically-intense application with linear relationships representing the vast majority of software applications; a configurable, component based object model (CBOM) for managing data. GINA combines development, control, application and implementation models which are also applications. GINA can configure and assemble models which can perform the work done by existing hard-coded information applications such as enterprise systems, integrations and information sharing.

Global Information Grid

The Global Information Grid (GIG) is a system belonging to the USA, which uses communications and computer capabilities, processes and personnel to collect, process, store, disseminate and manage information so that it can be made available to soldiers, policy makers, and support personnel on demand. The purpose of the GIG is to give the USA Information Superiority. It includes National Security Systems as they are defined in section 5142 of the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996. The need for a GIG was recognised by the USA in 1996 and has led to a number of research projects. As a combination of hardware and software-based components, which meets the requirements of a true GIG, GINA is configured as a universal virtual network of data of any type from any source in any location on collected physical networks.

Vector Relational Data Modeling (VRDM)

In VRDM, vectors (relationships between information objects) are themselves defined as information objects, and are configurable (object-oriented programming). VRDM enables disparate data, from disparate sources, to be invoked and configured to relate in a “System of Systems” model called a specification. The behavior of a specification can be the much same as a contemporary application programmed with machine language such as Assembler and descriptive languages for specifying procedures such as 4GLs like SQL. However, in VRDM, there is no such programming. While software modeling languages such as Unified Modeling Language (UML) or Object Role Modeling (ORM) articulate the architecture of an application, they are not executable.

Component Objects

Using VRDM, Data Agnostic Objects can be created to represent common relationships called Mechanisms. Mechanisms, both new and existing, can be reused and combined to create systems and subsystems. This facilitates rapid deployment and non-programmatic implementation.

Complexity

Complex systems can be assembled from a relatively few number of objects which are designed for interaction and assembly. At its lowest level (primitives), GINA has very few objects. For example, objects (XTypes in VRDM) and relationships between objects (vectors) are primitives. In turn, primitives are assembled into the basic building blocks of VRDM: fully defined objects representing XTypes and Vectors, as well as constraints and simple entities. These can then be assembled to fully describe the GINA environment, and to allow the administrator to create the data objects to support a Task Oriented User Interface (TOUI), or a specific application.

WorldSpace

A central concept in GINA is that objects can be referenced in multiple WorldSpaces. A WorldSpace determines the applicability of an object’s vectors, for example, their attributes and relationships, when assembled for a particular event or use. WorldSpaces are inherently hierarchical: as one more tightly defines the WorldSpace associated with an event or use, the more tightly one must define, and therefore more granularly (in detail) one needs to specify associated behaviors.

HyperPlanes

In GINA, an object exists in a 3-dimensional data object space. Its location in that space is defined by its order of complexity, its use and its related components as well as the WorldSpace in which it is being accessed and the user requesting that access. At any given time, the behavior of a system is dictated by all of its objects locations. However, this behavior is not the same for every user. It is the characteristics of the user which define hyperplanes in the object space. Hyperplanes allow a summary of an object model as a point in a 7plus dimensional object behavior space.

Directory Sub System (DSS)

GINA is implemented through a software-based, multi-layer, configurable data object management environment. Just as the entirety of GINA can be viewed as a series of well-structured layers, the data object management environment is also structured and layered, with multiple layers of the object management environment corresponding to each of the top three layers in the overall GINA. GINA’s “DSS” layer is composed of two separate implementation layers. There is a content server layer that consists of a collection of configurable objects. These objects are able to navigate the network, acquire data, and present it in a consistent way. Secondly, there is an aggregation layer that homogenizes all incoming data. The aggregation layer is a universal object repository. It insulates the user from the complexities of underlying data stores and their management.

Data Access Layer (DAL)

GINA collects data from aggregated systems using a collection of adaptors called Content Servers. The servers structure the protocols, formats, and syntax of collected data into a common representation that can be managed by GINA. Just as the providers of data to GINA operate on multiple protocols, formats, and syntaxes, the prospective user of GINA data may require information using their own protocols, formats, and syntax. To allow this, GINA has a standard "Data Access Layer" ("DAL).

Task Oriented User Interface (TOUI)

Another model that has been built in GINA is called the Task-Oriented User Interface (TOUI). The current mainstream approach to user interfaces ("UIs") involves a process where a developer "paints", or in some other way creates a mark-up of the UI, and then defines the binding of components of that the UI to the underlying application using some standardized approach. The TOUI model takes a different approach: a UI is assembled at the time of request from components according to a set of vectors that take into the account model states and the user during the assembly process. As a result, the UI no longer represents the application that uses information, but rather becomes the external expression of the information model that represents the application. Moreover, because the definition of the UI is done as a set of metadata-defined GINA components, the expression of those components can be done in any environment that has sufficiently strong semantics for representing applications, whether that is Java, .NET, Python, or even a 3-D visualization environment.interfaces, etc.

GINA Applications

• Command and Control (C2)
• C4ISR
• Intrinsic Multi-level network security
• Extensible executable enterprise solution