Convention Covers IT Service Orientation

Approximately 400 people participated at the ninth Koblenz IT Convention in August in Germany. The conference topic was: “IT Service Orientation: Recurring Hype or a Blueprint for the Bundeswehr?” Stéphane Beemelmans, state secretary for the German Ministry of Defense, claimed in his welcoming speech to implement the service orientation beyond the Bundeswehr. For example, he cited the aim to consolidate the federal government networks. According to Beemelmans, projects such as SASPF and HERKULES are important steps for service orientation. An open, standardized and flexible service architecture required enormous management efforts in the fields of data storage and security that should not be underestimated, stated Dr. Rüdiger Grimm, Institute for IS Research, University Koblenz-Landau. In a nutshell, the service orientation is an appropriate mean to reduce costs. Jörn Becker, head of global product line, civil and national security, ATOS, presented the project to harmonize the command and control systems of the Bundeswehr. First results can be expected by 2014, Becker said. He was convinced that some more agile development methods at the implementation are required for an efficient realization. The Bundeswehr's information technology strategy has to be compatible with NATO systems, said Maj. Gen. Ludwig Leinhos, GEAF, director of the NATO Headquarters Consultation, Command and Control (C3) Staff. As a possible solution, Gen. Leinhos presented some thoughts about the Future/Federated Mission Network (FMN), which was conceived for missions in the future, based on the Afghanistan Mission Network. Again, outstanding student research projects by young German university graduates in the fields of computer sciences, communications engineering and automation engineering were awarded at the Koblenz IT Convention with an overall amount of €15,000.

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