US MATRIX uses CTL like Architecture

A recent Slashdot article posts this statement:

Associated Press: 'The Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange combines state vehicle and crime records with commercial databases owned by a private company, Seisint, covering half the U.S. population,' but there were 'questions about the legality of sending state-owned records to Seisint'. The solution? “Each state will maintain its own records . . . Software will search each state's records as necessary.'

The Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange system, also known as MATRIX is now using a similar technique to get around jurisdiction and release laws by allowing the system to execute distributed searches so that each of the states can keep and maintain their own databases. Not this is not a new technique at all, but it is new for governments to use these concepts. I have also designed this same capability into the Coalition Theatre Logistics (CTL) project that I am the Australian Technical Manager for.

CTL has been operating since the year 2000 but only started true technical development in 2002. The aim of CTL is to provide a system that will allow multiple nations to share and access logistics information for coalition operations. The current CTL architecture was designed by myself using the familiar concepts developed for business to business transactions on the Internet but expanding the concepts to support the extra requirements of CTL.

Like MATRIX, CTL uses a similar distributed searching technique so that each nation owns their data on the coalition network and uses a series of coalition defined web services to allow other nations to access this data. This type of architecture allows for nations to maintain control over their data and selectively release this data to the network. The benefits of using a distributed data search and data access architecture are:

• Owners of data maintain control as they still own the databases containing the data.
• Different implementations of storage can be implemented in the national data storage areas as it does not affect the distributed search or coalition data access interfaces.
• Allows for the definition of standardised data access and transfer so that other nations can easily access the distributed network.
• Distributes the processing load for searching and storing of data
• Spreads the cost of implementation as each nation is responsible for their node on the coalition network.
• Allows for firewalls and other network filters to secure the national nodes on the network.
• Allows for flexible communication between nodes on the network

Distributed systems when crossing political boundaries allow for a much greater flexibility when compared with central data store solutions as it is near impossible to separate data when stored centrally. This merging of data in central data stores does not easily allow for multiple levels of security or separate data that is only releasable to certain audiences. By using distributed data stores allow for an easier method of applying security and controlling the data access, however the development of the clients and data access software becomes more complex. This complexity in developing the clients to access data is one of the reason such a design is avoided by many developers and a single data storage solution is chosen, but this is not necessarily the correct choice.

Over the next couple of months I will be producing a report as part of my work which will be publicly available and will provide access to a copy from here. The title of this report is “Multi-lateral Information Exchange Environment (MIEE) architecture” and will be available from the DSTO publications database or via the research link on the DSTO Home Page. You can also find all my publicly releasable reports by entering my full name (“Egon Kuster”) into the search area.

Links
Slashdot Article on MATRIX
Article on USA today
DSTO publications database
DSTO Home Page