Network centrics
Encyclopedia
Network Centrics is the emerging discipline of applying and enhancing networking and computing
concepts and implementation technologies in a variety of social, business, content distribution, and communication domains involving interactions amongst the domain entities. Network Centrics acts as a catalytic agent resulting in significant improvements in the definition, modeling, comprehension, performance, and effectivity associated with these interactions. This topic has gained importance because of increasing connectivity at individual, corporate, and government levels. Network Centrics is supported by a sustained growth of Internet
in conjunction with continued advances in efficient computing algorithms, cost-effective data-persistence solutions, and high-performance data network options that can now be leveraged in a variety of domains.
among large number of entities in a wide variety of fields ranging from social groups, electrical transmission systems, spread of pandemics
, metabolic pathways, gene expression
, evolutionary behavior, and various Internet based large applications. Closely associated with such fundamental network connectivity is the popular concept of six degrees of separation
(that all human beings are on the average only six acquaintances away from any other human being in the world) that is now part of common vernacular.
for the associated interactions. The network effect can be improved by using an automated information infrastructure as a substratum for bridging geographical and temporal distances in a fast, reliable, and secure fashion. Networking infrastructures have evolved from smoke and light signals, telegraphs, telephone
s, mobile telephony
, to Internet applications
leveraging key advances in electro-mechanical transducers, semiconductor
, magnetic data storage, software programmed computers, wireless communication, and algorithms. Although technologies such as computer hardware and software have been critical in the growth of digital data and telephony networks, the two broad fields of networking and computing
have evolved independently, thus limiting their potential in certain domains. Network Centrics consolidates the principles, tools, and technologies of the networking and computing fields for a unified approach towards improving domain interactions.
The meteoric rise of social networking web sites such as My Space and Facebook
has demonstrated the power of networking (fast connections for large number of users) and computing technologies (databases, search algorithms, matching algorithms, user interface). Such an infrastructure serves as a potent catalyst which can improve connectivity and improve associated interactions with several orders of magnitude. Another application of the Network Centrics concepts is exemplified by a mature and scalable trading platform provided by Internet auction sites such as eBay
that efficiently interconnects the buyers and sellers across geographical and temporal boundaries. This Network Centric platform requires efficient implementation of auction algorithms, databases for storing goods and current bids and email software for automatic notifications used to improve the auction process all working over a large area data network. An extensive use of both computing and networking technologies enables a reliable, transparent, secure and well defined way of millions of interactions on a daily basis for a large number of participants interested in finding and buying specific physical goods on the one hand and sellers on the other who have profit making objectives. This is in stark contrast with the local bazaars of yesteryears with at most hundreds of people participating in handful of auctions in a session.
Besides these recent Internet phenomena, now part of the day-to-day life in all continents and most countries, there is also a profound change in the role of networking for national defense. Many large countries, led by United States, have unequivocally stipulated that the current defense strategy should be radically transformed with information networking being the central substratum for command, control, intelligence, sensing, and reconnaissance. The scope of such network-centric warfare
goes far beyond policy, directives, training, and logistics to actual remote real-time sensing and shooting. This involves a robust, secure and comprehensive integration among all sensor integration, data collection, data storage, information analysis, decision making, and weapon system activation tasks across large geographical distances and multiple services and coalition partners. In fact, the term Network Centricity itself has emerged from the set of many policy documents, starting with Adm. William Owens introduction of the term “system of systems” followed by Network Centric Warfare as discussed by Vice Admiral Arthur Cebrowski and John Gartska, and detailed in the book “Network Centric Warfare”). Netcentric approach is a now a key facet of the strategic transformation of US defense forces with information superiority.
, multicast
, persistence
, robustness
, and assurance
. This is further enriched by leveraging computing concepts such as discovery
, mediation and search, collaboration, filtering and data mining algorithms with associated automated implementations using computer and software technologies. Adequate sensor
and actuator
components are used to interface the domain entities with the underlying automation infrastructure. The use of service level agreements for interactions ensures quality of service
, for a specific price, and associates information assurance for privacy
, authenticity
, and non-repudiation
. These technical concepts are well understood and widely implemented with a large number of technologies as epitomized by existing information automation infrastructures (networks). This includes the Internet with TCP/IP and HTTP family of protocols and the mobile communications devices based on GSM and CDMA standards providing voice, email, paging, and other applications. The implementation of these infrastructural networks has been possible with extensive research and development over the past four decades in packet networking, mobile cellular architectures
, computing algorithms, point and click user interfaces, data processing techniques and Internet web applications. Though landline phone networks have been around for more than a hundred years and at least initially played a major role in accessing Internet with dialup connections, their importance is diminishing rapidly because of their inherent efficiency, cost, and flexibility issues.
Studying and organizing the interactions among domain entities can be facilitated by judiciously applying one or more networking concepts such as queuing theory and computer simulation techniques
. For any performance improvement, however, automated technologies such as wide area communication, algorithmic manipulation, and persistent storage of data in transit, bring us from basic and simple networking to the field of Network Centrics. The use of appropriate sensor technologies which can transform many chemical, biological, physical, and situational data into electrical signals facilitate linking with data collection networks for further information aggregation, processing, knowledge mining
, and decision making. Today it is mostly the computer and network technologies manifested in well known products such as computer servers, PC, web browsers, database management system, email, paging, data mining
tools, TCP/IP protocols, routers, optical communication links
, mobile PDA
, etc. that are deployed for a network centric performance boosting for interactions occurring over large distances and time scales. Besides these widely deployed computing and data network technologies, there are other emergent technologies that are also relevant for Network Centric improvement of domain interactions.
, and insulin
dispensing pumps that automate interactions within the human body with suitable sensors and actuators, data collection wired network, and micro-computer based processing without any external support. The development of advanced microscopic devices using nano technology for electrical, mechanical, and chemical transduction
will revolutionize human health care for disease prevention, monitoring, and treatment. Such futuristic devices will involve interactions at molecular and cellular levels occurring at sub-second time scales. Other healthcare interactions such as disease biomarkers monitoring, patient-physician encounters, adverse drug reactions and clinical trials for drug discovery are also witnessing a ground-breaking revolution supported by network centric improvements. This is best epitomized by the national initiative to interconnect healthcare entities such as medical practices, hospitals, laboratories in federated networks called National Health Information Networks (NHIN).
The data networking interactions are typically associated with specific protocols that give structure to the way information is organized, sequenced, and exchanged. A well known networking protocol is Internet Protocol
(IP) that is supported by every Internet networking node at the network layer
of the Open Systems Interconnection
(OSI) model. The OSI model prescribes a seven layer model for data networking. The physical layer
defines the electrical and optical behavior between two nodes directly connected. Any error detection and recovery along with suitable data packet framing is covered in data link layer. The network layer covers direct and indirect connectivity between any two nodes with associated addressing and routing capabilities. The transport layer
provides reliable data communication across two end nodes, typically called hosts. The upper three layers, session, presentation application, involve end user computer applications.
Protocols are not just for data network implementation. As an example, a clinical protocol could also be used in a clinical trial that defines how patients are selected, medical experiments defined, drug dosage administered, adverse reaction monitored, clinical data collected, and results processed for discovering new drugs for treating a disease. It is myopic, however, to see the automation of drug development interactions as just a computing problem (and supported by a centralized automated information system). This may be one of the reasons why clinical trials continue to be expensive despite the availability of clinical trial management software. Such protocols or interactions involve large number of patients distributed over multiple geographic areas working with their respective physicians, under the scrutiny of regulatory bodies at local, regional, and national levels, and finally sponsored by a profit-oriented pharmaceutical firm. This creates a complex domain that requires networking and computing technologies in a unified fashion for higher performance and improved information security for all interactions.
Routing
Quality of Service
Service Level Agreement
Multicast
Management
Policy
Web Browser
Email Protocol
Web Protocol
Store and Forward
Persistence
Nano Technology
Web 2.0
Semantic Web
Ontology
Network Centric Platform
Goods Exchange
Health Care (Disease Prevention, Detection, Treatment)
Medical Research (Proteomics, Genomics)
Drug Discovery (Clinical Trials)
Education
Warfare
Home Land Security
Networking Companies
Health Research Institutes
Department of Defense
Computing
Computing is usually defined as the activity of using and improving computer hardware and software. It is the computer-specific part of information technology...
concepts and implementation technologies in a variety of social, business, content distribution, and communication domains involving interactions amongst the domain entities. Network Centrics acts as a catalytic agent resulting in significant improvements in the definition, modeling, comprehension, performance, and effectivity associated with these interactions. This topic has gained importance because of increasing connectivity at individual, corporate, and government levels. Network Centrics is supported by a sustained growth of Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
in conjunction with continued advances in efficient computing algorithms, cost-effective data-persistence solutions, and high-performance data network options that can now be leveraged in a variety of domains.
Overview
Network Centrics focuses on the central role of integrated networking and computing as a premise, facilitator, and accelerator for a rapid, sustained, cost-effective and managed improvement of interactions among the various entities constituting a domain. It formalizes, automates, and extends the fundamental concept of network effect that describe the underlying connectivityConnectivity (graph theory)
In mathematics and computer science, connectivity is one of the basic concepts of graph theory: it asks for the minimum number of elements which need to be removed to disconnect the remaining nodes from each other. It is closely related to the theory of network flow problems...
among large number of entities in a wide variety of fields ranging from social groups, electrical transmission systems, spread of pandemics
Pandemic
A pandemic is an epidemic of infectious disease that is spreading through human populations across a large region; for instance multiple continents, or even worldwide. A widespread endemic disease that is stable in terms of how many people are getting sick from it is not a pandemic...
, metabolic pathways, gene expression
Gene regulatory network
A gene regulatory network or genetic regulatory network is a collection of DNA segments in a cell whichinteract with each other indirectly and with other substances in the cell, thereby governing the rates at which genes in the network are transcribed into mRNA.In general, each mRNA molecule goes...
, evolutionary behavior, and various Internet based large applications. Closely associated with such fundamental network connectivity is the popular concept of six degrees of separation
Six degrees of separation
Six degrees of separation refers to the idea that everyone is on average approximately six steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person on Earth, so that a chain of, "a friend of a friend" statements can be made, on average, to connect any two people in six steps or fewer...
(that all human beings are on the average only six acquaintances away from any other human being in the world) that is now part of common vernacular.
Improving Interactions among the Domain Entities
Underlying connectivity among the entities which are spatially or temporally separated from other entities is severely inefficient, thus limiting the network effectNetwork effect
In economics and business, a network effect is the effect that one user of a good or service has on the value of that product to other people. When network effect is present, the value of a product or service is dependent on the number of others using it.The classic example is the telephone...
for the associated interactions. The network effect can be improved by using an automated information infrastructure as a substratum for bridging geographical and temporal distances in a fast, reliable, and secure fashion. Networking infrastructures have evolved from smoke and light signals, telegraphs, telephone
Telephone
The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...
s, mobile telephony
Mobile telephony
Mobile telephony is the provision of telephone services to phones which may move around freely rather than stay fixed in one location. Mobile phones connect to a terrestrial cellular network of base stations , whereas satellite phones connect to orbiting satellites...
, to Internet applications
Web application
A web application is an application that is accessed over a network such as the Internet or an intranet. The term may also mean a computer software application that is coded in a browser-supported language and reliant on a common web browser to render the application executable.Web applications are...
leveraging key advances in electro-mechanical transducers, semiconductor
Semiconductor
A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity due to electron flow intermediate in magnitude between that of a conductor and an insulator. This means a conductivity roughly in the range of 103 to 10−8 siemens per centimeter...
, magnetic data storage, software programmed computers, wireless communication, and algorithms. Although technologies such as computer hardware and software have been critical in the growth of digital data and telephony networks, the two broad fields of networking and computing
Computing
Computing is usually defined as the activity of using and improving computer hardware and software. It is the computer-specific part of information technology...
have evolved independently, thus limiting their potential in certain domains. Network Centrics consolidates the principles, tools, and technologies of the networking and computing fields for a unified approach towards improving domain interactions.
The meteoric rise of social networking web sites such as My Space and Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
has demonstrated the power of networking (fast connections for large number of users) and computing technologies (databases, search algorithms, matching algorithms, user interface). Such an infrastructure serves as a potent catalyst which can improve connectivity and improve associated interactions with several orders of magnitude. Another application of the Network Centrics concepts is exemplified by a mature and scalable trading platform provided by Internet auction sites such as eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
that efficiently interconnects the buyers and sellers across geographical and temporal boundaries. This Network Centric platform requires efficient implementation of auction algorithms, databases for storing goods and current bids and email software for automatic notifications used to improve the auction process all working over a large area data network. An extensive use of both computing and networking technologies enables a reliable, transparent, secure and well defined way of millions of interactions on a daily basis for a large number of participants interested in finding and buying specific physical goods on the one hand and sellers on the other who have profit making objectives. This is in stark contrast with the local bazaars of yesteryears with at most hundreds of people participating in handful of auctions in a session.
Besides these recent Internet phenomena, now part of the day-to-day life in all continents and most countries, there is also a profound change in the role of networking for national defense. Many large countries, led by United States, have unequivocally stipulated that the current defense strategy should be radically transformed with information networking being the central substratum for command, control, intelligence, sensing, and reconnaissance. The scope of such network-centric warfare
Network-centric warfare
Network-centric warfare, also called network-centric operations, is a military doctrine or theory of war pioneered by the United States Department of Defense in the 1990's....
goes far beyond policy, directives, training, and logistics to actual remote real-time sensing and shooting. This involves a robust, secure and comprehensive integration among all sensor integration, data collection, data storage, information analysis, decision making, and weapon system activation tasks across large geographical distances and multiple services and coalition partners. In fact, the term Network Centricity itself has emerged from the set of many policy documents, starting with Adm. William Owens introduction of the term “system of systems” followed by Network Centric Warfare as discussed by Vice Admiral Arthur Cebrowski and John Gartska, and detailed in the book “Network Centric Warfare”). Netcentric approach is a now a key facet of the strategic transformation of US defense forces with information superiority.
Extending Basic Networking Concepts
Network Centrics extends the fundamental concept of domain networking that exists, though in a constrained fashion, independent of any automation provided by information (computing and networking) infrastructure. This extension is initiated by adding specific networking concepts such as addressing, routingRouting
Routing is the process of selecting paths in a network along which to send network traffic. Routing is performed for many kinds of networks, including the telephone network , electronic data networks , and transportation networks...
, multicast
Multicast
In computer networking, multicast is the delivery of a message or information to a group of destination computers simultaneously in a single transmission from the source creating copies automatically in other network elements, such as routers, only when the topology of the network requires...
, persistence
Persistence
Persistence may refer to:* Image persistence, in LCD monitors* Multidrug tolerance, a dormant, persistent state of a bacterial population* Persistence , the characteristic of data that outlives the execution of the program that created it...
, robustness
Robustness
Robustness may refer to:*In biology**Robustness , the persistence of a system’s characteristic behavior under perturbations or conditions of uncertainty...
, and assurance
Information Assurance
Information assurance is the practice of managing risks related to the use, processing, storage, and transmission of information or data and the systems and processes used for those purposes...
. This is further enriched by leveraging computing concepts such as discovery
Service discovery
Service discovery protocols are network protocols which allow automatic detection of devices and services offered by these devices on a computer network....
, mediation and search, collaboration, filtering and data mining algorithms with associated automated implementations using computer and software technologies. Adequate sensor
Sensor
A sensor is a device that measures a physical quantity and converts it into a signal which can be read by an observer or by an instrument. For example, a mercury-in-glass thermometer converts the measured temperature into expansion and contraction of a liquid which can be read on a calibrated...
and actuator
Actuator
An actuator is a type of motor for moving or controlling a mechanism or system. It is operated by a source of energy, usually in the form of an electric current, hydraulic fluid pressure or pneumatic pressure, and converts that energy into some kind of motion. An actuator is the mechanism by which...
components are used to interface the domain entities with the underlying automation infrastructure. The use of service level agreements for interactions ensures quality of service
Quality of service
The quality of service refers to several related aspects of telephony and computer networks that allow the transport of traffic with special requirements...
, for a specific price, and associates information assurance for privacy
Privacy
Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively...
, authenticity
Authentication
Authentication is the act of confirming the truth of an attribute of a datum or entity...
, and non-repudiation
Non-repudiation
Non-repudiation refers to a state of affairs where the purported maker of a statement will not be able to successfully challenge the validity of the statement or contract. The term is often seen in a legal setting wherein the authenticity of a signature is being challenged...
. These technical concepts are well understood and widely implemented with a large number of technologies as epitomized by existing information automation infrastructures (networks). This includes the Internet with TCP/IP and HTTP family of protocols and the mobile communications devices based on GSM and CDMA standards providing voice, email, paging, and other applications. The implementation of these infrastructural networks has been possible with extensive research and development over the past four decades in packet networking, mobile cellular architectures
Cellular network
A cellular network is a radio network distributed over land areas called cells, each served by at least one fixed-location transceiver known as a cell site or base station. When joined together these cells provide radio coverage over a wide geographic area...
, computing algorithms, point and click user interfaces, data processing techniques and Internet web applications. Though landline phone networks have been around for more than a hundred years and at least initially played a major role in accessing Internet with dialup connections, their importance is diminishing rapidly because of their inherent efficiency, cost, and flexibility issues.
Studying and organizing the interactions among domain entities can be facilitated by judiciously applying one or more networking concepts such as queuing theory and computer simulation techniques
Simulation
Simulation is the imitation of some real thing available, state of affairs, or process. The act of simulating something generally entails representing certain key characteristics or behaviours of a selected physical or abstract system....
. For any performance improvement, however, automated technologies such as wide area communication, algorithmic manipulation, and persistent storage of data in transit, bring us from basic and simple networking to the field of Network Centrics. The use of appropriate sensor technologies which can transform many chemical, biological, physical, and situational data into electrical signals facilitate linking with data collection networks for further information aggregation, processing, knowledge mining
Data mining
Data mining , a relatively young and interdisciplinary field of computer science is the process of discovering new patterns from large data sets involving methods at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics and database systems...
, and decision making. Today it is mostly the computer and network technologies manifested in well known products such as computer servers, PC, web browsers, database management system, email, paging, data mining
Data mining
Data mining , a relatively young and interdisciplinary field of computer science is the process of discovering new patterns from large data sets involving methods at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics and database systems...
tools, TCP/IP protocols, routers, optical communication links
Sonet
Sonet may refer to:* Sonet Records, European record label* Synchronous optical networking * Saab Sonett...
, mobile PDA
Personal digital assistant
A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...
, etc. that are deployed for a network centric performance boosting for interactions occurring over large distances and time scales. Besides these widely deployed computing and data network technologies, there are other emergent technologies that are also relevant for Network Centric improvement of domain interactions.
Emergent Technologies and Domains
For certain fields, the spatial and temporal scales are much shorter compared to our day-to-day networking scenarios using Internet and mobile phones. An important example of such network centric domain is associated with chemical, biological and physiological interactions among the molecules, cells, tissues, and organs within the human body. It is already possible to place electronic devices such as pacemakersArtificial pacemaker
A pacemaker is a medical device that uses electrical impulses, delivered by electrodes contacting the heart muscles, to regulate the beating of the heart...
, and insulin
Insulin
Insulin is a hormone central to regulating carbohydrate and fat metabolism in the body. Insulin causes cells in the liver, muscle, and fat tissue to take up glucose from the blood, storing it as glycogen in the liver and muscle....
dispensing pumps that automate interactions within the human body with suitable sensors and actuators, data collection wired network, and micro-computer based processing without any external support. The development of advanced microscopic devices using nano technology for electrical, mechanical, and chemical transduction
Transducer
A transducer is a device that converts one type of energy to another. Energy types include electrical, mechanical, electromagnetic , chemical, acoustic or thermal energy. While the term transducer commonly implies the use of a sensor/detector, any device which converts energy can be considered a...
will revolutionize human health care for disease prevention, monitoring, and treatment. Such futuristic devices will involve interactions at molecular and cellular levels occurring at sub-second time scales. Other healthcare interactions such as disease biomarkers monitoring, patient-physician encounters, adverse drug reactions and clinical trials for drug discovery are also witnessing a ground-breaking revolution supported by network centric improvements. This is best epitomized by the national initiative to interconnect healthcare entities such as medical practices, hospitals, laboratories in federated networks called National Health Information Networks (NHIN).
Network Layering and Protocols
The fundamental primitives of a Network Centric domain comprise the entities within the domain and the interactions that occur across these entities. At a more detailed level, the various entities can be partitioned into multiple categories with respect to their roles, responsibility, and interests. Any complex domain is also likely to display network centricity at various levels or layers where an interaction can be further decomposed into more detailed sub-entities and/or sub-interactions at a lower layer. This layering is one of the most basic principles of data networking.The data networking interactions are typically associated with specific protocols that give structure to the way information is organized, sequenced, and exchanged. A well known networking protocol is Internet Protocol
Internet Protocol
The Internet Protocol is the principal communications protocol used for relaying datagrams across an internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite...
(IP) that is supported by every Internet networking node at the network layer
Network layer
The network layer is layer 3 of the seven-layer OSI model of computer networking.The network layer is responsible for packet forwarding including routing through intermediate routers, whereas the data link layer is responsible for media access control, flow control and error checking.The network...
of the Open Systems Interconnection
Open Systems Interconnection
Open Systems Interconnection is an effort to standardize networking that was started in 1977 by the International Organization for Standardization , along with the ITU-T.-History:...
(OSI) model. The OSI model prescribes a seven layer model for data networking. The physical layer
Physical layer
The physical layer or layer 1 is the first and lowest layer in the seven-layer OSI model of computer networking. The implementation of this layer is often termed PHY....
defines the electrical and optical behavior between two nodes directly connected. Any error detection and recovery along with suitable data packet framing is covered in data link layer. The network layer covers direct and indirect connectivity between any two nodes with associated addressing and routing capabilities. The transport layer
Transport layer
In computer networking, the transport layer or layer 4 provides end-to-end communication services for applications within a layered architecture of network components and protocols...
provides reliable data communication across two end nodes, typically called hosts. The upper three layers, session, presentation application, involve end user computer applications.
Protocols are not just for data network implementation. As an example, a clinical protocol could also be used in a clinical trial that defines how patients are selected, medical experiments defined, drug dosage administered, adverse reaction monitored, clinical data collected, and results processed for discovering new drugs for treating a disease. It is myopic, however, to see the automation of drug development interactions as just a computing problem (and supported by a centralized automated information system). This may be one of the reasons why clinical trials continue to be expensive despite the availability of clinical trial management software. Such protocols or interactions involve large number of patients distributed over multiple geographic areas working with their respective physicians, under the scrutiny of regulatory bodies at local, regional, and national levels, and finally sponsored by a profit-oriented pharmaceutical firm. This creates a complex domain that requires networking and computing technologies in a unified fashion for higher performance and improved information security for all interactions.
Data Network Concepts and Technologies
AddressingRouting
Quality of Service
Service Level Agreement
Multicast
Management
Policy
Computing Concept and Technologies
ServerWeb Browser
Email Protocol
Web Protocol
Store and Forward
Persistence
Emerging Technologies
Adaptive Network ImplementationsNano Technology
Web 2.0
Semantic Web
Ontology
Network Centric Platform
Network Centric Domains
Social NetworksGoods Exchange
Health Care (Disease Prevention, Detection, Treatment)
Medical Research (Proteomics, Genomics)
Drug Discovery (Clinical Trials)
Education
Warfare
Home Land Security
Organizations Involved in Network Centrics
Computer CompaniesNetworking Companies
Health Research Institutes
Department of Defense