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DCO Underway

Thread posted 08/04/11 by TJ_M
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Title
DCO Underway

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I just finished participating in a Navy Experiement in which we ran DCO on NIPRnet in the Navy Afloat networking environment.  The evaluation involved running DCO chat and Connect web conferencing on the next generation Integrated Shipboard Networking System but using the ship's existing comm assets.  We successfully ran chat and web conferencing sessions in a scenario where we emulated an afloat element of a Joint Task Force modeled somewhat after the Haiti Disaster Relief efforts.  This was a combination of standing chat rooms and daily status briefs run on Connect.  The connectivity checker dictated that our platform, which was a large deck amphibious ship, was connecting at modem speed so we set our meetings and local connection to modem.  We were able to run substantial presentation sharing with the afloat element as host and in a presenter role, VOIP, and webcam.  We even were able to share an application in the form of our IE browser but that is probably stretching the capabilities.  Shipboard comm needs to be monitored, and use of the in meeting latency, uplink, downlink monitor is recommended.  Latency, especially if using push to talk for VOIP needs to be considered, and if you are using webcam, you need to practice the thoughtful stare of many of the broadcast journalists as they report over their satcom links from on location as they wait out the latency.   We collected bandwidth information that has yet to be analyzed but from what we saw performance-wise and from the in-room meter, the capability was definitely useable.  We conducted a number of sessions with .mil users at various locations, and even brought in commercial internet participants as we needed to demonstrate the non.mil user could access the environment.  All in all, a successful evolution.