Naval Task Force interface for Coalition Networks for Secure Information Sharing (CoNSIS)

Abstract

Merging IP routing and mobile communication poses many challenges especially for a dynamic, heterogeneous networking environment such as a Naval Task Force. In this paper, we present an effort to design, develop, test and demonstrate an interoperable coalition interface for a Naval Task Force for the four-nation Coalition Networks for Secure Information Sharing (CoNSIS) project. A field experimentation has been performed between the four CoNSIS nations with the separate national sites being connected via the Internet. The key architectural objective of the United States (US) is to support tactical coalition networks of the other nations. The routing architecture is based on Open Shortest Path First Version 3 (OSPFv3) in conjunction with two main features, namely (1) IPv6 address auto configuration enabled on mobile links to alleviate administrative burden, and (2) Address Family (AF) support to allow IPv4 traffic to be passed via IPv6 backbone. In addition, Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) with Flow Credit and Link Metric extensions is used to provide mobile networks via point-to-multipoint links with support for Quality of Service (QoS). Furthermore, link encryptors secure the network, which make use of Dynamic Discovery mechanisms to determine remote routing endpoints.