SAFENET-a LAN for Navy mission critical systems

SAFENET (survivable adaptable fiber optic embedded network), a local area network profile covering all seven ISO/OSI layers, has been selected to meet the needs of systems used aboard the US Navy's combat ships and aircraft and is one of the Navy's NGCR (Next Generation Computer Resources) programme standard sets which are being developed to provide an architecture for computing resources in future Navy systems. While much of the SAFENET profile is taken directly from the existing GOSIP and MAP profiles, requirements of the combat environment necessitate some different capabilities. Areas of concern include: network cable plant, provision and reconfiguration of redundant paths, support for time synchronization across the network, a real-time oriented transport protocol, network management, directory services, and communication from application process to application process. Activities of the SAFENET Working Group to overcome the shortfalls of commercial standards are discussed.< >