Defense Information Infrastructure Common Operating Environment (DIICOE)

Joe Schartman

Defense Information Infrastructure Common Operating Environment (DIICOE) is a framework that was created by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) to manage set of cooperating computing networks. DISA wanted to enable its various Global Command and Control System (GCCS) networks to share date and be managed as a common environment. By 1998, GCCS was operational under the DIICOE environment and during the next few years hundreds of Department of Defense (DoD) system were also updated to run under DIICOE. These systems included computers running Microsoft Windows, Sun Solaris, HP UNIX, and Linux for programmed under Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps. The DIICOE has been a tremendous improvement to the DoD capability since as Dr. Gregory Frazier (2001) explains “The DoD enterprise computing system is a system of systems (SoS) in which information and services are shared across enterprise boundaries.”

DIICOE is an integration framework, not a design framework like DoDAF. Developers follow the DIICOE segmentation rules to create applications that can be installed and run under DIICOE network machines. These applications are designed to be modular, and scalable for distributed Command, Control, Computer, Communications, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) DIICOE computer systems. These computer systems are now integrated environments that allow sharing data between the applications and networks and common management application program interfaces (APIs) for performing cross platform system administration and of COE applications.

DIICOE specifies applications as segments which are similar to packages used for open source software. These segments are more than just software packages since the segments have to pass validation tests before system integration. This validation actually works like an integration test review since the format specifications need to be reviewed by integrators and validation is performed by the COEInstaller tool. This segmentation process also works as a coding standard since standard configuration management versioning, naming, and documentation is all required by the COEInstaller tool for the target system.

DIICOE systems have the following four levels of software: the kernel, the common support applications, and the infrastructure services. The kernel is common to every DIICOE computer and is the level above the associated operating system (OS). The kernel APIs offer common interfaces to the machine OS including most of the system administration capabilities. The common support applications are the computer desktop tools like email, word processors, and web applications. The infrastructure services offer general purpose utilities like development, database, web and file system tools.

DIICOE is similar to CMMI since it has compliance levels. Both of these process have levels where higher number indicate better compliance but DIICOE has 8 levels instead of 5 for CMMI. Higher levels of DIICOE indicate better cooperation and data sharing between the applications. DoD applications need to operate at a DIICOE level of 5 or higher since this will guarantee strict segmentation behavior and no security risk to other DIICOE applications. The DII Integration and Runtime Specification (I&RTS) should be consulted for segmentation and compliance details.

Frazier, G (2001). The DII COE: An Enterprise Framework. Retrieved from:

http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2001/10/frazier.html