Enterprise Directory Feasibility Study and Proof of Concept for CCEB Nation MOD

The Challenge

For many years, this major military organisation has run a data repository that provides its user community with a range of information on the organisation, individuals and roles. The customer is planning to refresh the system with the latest releases of hardware, operating system and applications. At the same time, the customer wants to extend the service to up to 1.3 million entries, increase availability and enhance the information held to provide improved decision making capability to command staff in both regular daily operations and in the event of critical military or homeland security incidents. This would involve capture and availability of information relating to C4I assets as well as personnel.

The existing service runs on Nexor Directory and pulls in data feeds from multiple disparate sources. The customer engaged Nexor to undertake a feasibility study and proof of concept to assess the requirements and plans, and confirm the suitability of the Nexor Directory to support them going forward.

The Nexor Solution

During the engagement with the customer, Nexor consultants reviewed the data manipulation framework, the information structures and the data security, formats and availability to confirm suitability for the enhanced requirements. The latest version of Nexor Directory, version 6, was installed and tested.

The Nexor Directory forms the basis of the repository. Information stored in the repository is compiled through the aggregation of multiple data feeds using a data manipulation framework. The framework performs a range of functions on incoming data, including creating consistent formats, identifying and mapping relationships, applying confidentiality rules and performing validation checks. Once a single consistent data set has been produced, information is stored in relevant structures in the Nexor Directory to cater for future access needs.

For security purposes, data populating the repository is assigned the relevant access and modification control rules. Multiple levels of access controls are applied to the data, in accordance with the sensitivity of the data involved. Once stored, data is available via web based technologies, stand-alone clients and plug-ins to office applications using a range of standards-based mechanisms for access (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), V2 and V3 (including TLS support), Directory Access Protocol (DAP), HTTP web based interface and Directory System Protocol (DSP)) and replication (Directory Information Shadowing Protocol (DISP), LDAP Data Interchange Format (LDIF) and CSV files).

The repository technology is highly extensible allowing new attributes (data fields) and schema structures (data groupings) to be defined, as required, to support a wide range of applications and users. Support for internationally recognised schemas is provided to facilitate interoperability with other government and non-government agencies and NATO interoperability is provided via support for the more complex military schema defined in “Allied Communications Protocol (ACP) 133B, Common Directory Services and Procedures”.

The Result

Availability of a central authoritative information repository is a key enabler to multiple organisations from many different domains sharing information. A primary feature of a central repository is that that the information may be accessed quickly by both users and applications via internationally agreed access methods. Nexor’s solution for this customer has proven that their vision for improved communication, interoperability and decision making can be realised.

The repository has historically been utilised to locate personnel information only. The expanded capability was proven to be able to provide a tool for command staff to identify personnel and equipment resources, their locations, capabilities and state of readiness quickly and accurately. For example, when the data feeds are all configured, they will be able to identify a resource, such as personnel, with a specific capability, such as a language, and the level of competence in that language, such as the ability to speak fluently only. Once located, command staff will access a picture of the individual and be granted access to the individual based on the original requirement. This enhanced level of sophistication will improve response levels in essential mission tasks in support of military or homeland security events.