Messaging and Directory Server software used around the world in the Government, Military, Aviation and Commercial sectors.

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Applications for Military Radio & Satellite

Many Isode applications are optimized for use over Radio, Satellite and other multicast and potentially low quality/performance links. Although this functionality may have general application, Military organizations are the primary target of these applications, and a number of protocols specified for military use are key to Isode's product set.

This solutions page gives an overview of the products and management tools that Isode provides for Radio and Satellite networks, giving a communication network oriented view of the Isode product set.

What Isode Provides

Isode provides software applications that are optimized for radio and satellite networks. Isode's core approach is to provide server-to-server communication, as this enables maximum efficiency to be obtained from the underlying networks, and isolates clients from those underlying networks. This allows use of standard clients, as specialized functionality is provided by the servers. Clients can connect directly to the Isode servers, or indirectly via other servers, as shown above.

Isode provides the following applications optimized for Satellite and Radio:

• STANAG 4406 Formal Military Messaging, using STANAG 4406 Annex E.
• Internet Messaging, using BSMTP and ACP 142.
• Directory Replication, using incremental update over Email.
• File Transfer over Email
• Operator Chat for HF Radio (STANAG 5066).

Isode plans to add support for Instant Messaging and Presence using XMPP in a future release.

Isode’s application suite is unique in that:

• It provides support for a broad set of applications.
• It is independent of any radio (or satellite) vendor, providing integration with standard protocols.
• It offers applications over both IP and STANAG 5066 for supporting non-IP radios.

Why use Special Protocols?

There are a number of reasons why Isode servers and the special protocols they use are preferable to running standard applications over Satellite and Radio:

• Low speed. Modern applications are generally optimized for use over medium and high speed networks. The overheads are not acceptable for slow networks. For this reason, NATO mandates use of STANAG 4406 Annex E for communication links slower than 20 kilobits per second.
• Multicast. Standard application protocols are point to point, and cannot take advantage of the multicast nature or radio and satellite networks.
  
• EMCON (Emission Control or Radio Silence). It is sometimes desirable to communicate with units that do not transmit. Standard application protocols cannot support this.
• Network characteristics. As well as being slow, radio networks exhibit characteristics which are awkward for applications, including high latency, long turnaround time, data loss, and variable bandwidth. This is a particular problem for HF Radio, which means that special protocols (and in particular STANAG 5066) are essential.

Application Integration with the Network

Isode provides applications (servers), and it is important to understand the interface between the application and the network. Isode offers two choices:

1. IP. Internet Protocol is widely used and is an almost universal interface between application and network.
2. STANAG 5066 is a data link protocol designed for use over HF Radio, as illustrated above. It can support IP as a STANAG 5066 application. When this paper considers STANAG 5066, it is looking at direct Isode server application use of the STANAG 5066 protocols.

The choice of which integration protocol to be used will depend on the network being used. Isode makes the following recommendations:

• Satellite. Use IP.
• SHF and faster Radio. Use IP.
• HF Radio. Use STANAG 5066. Use of IP will give very poor performance, and should not be used.
• VHF Radio. Use STANAG 5066. It will give significantly better performance than IP, and for 9600 baud channels this is important.
• UHF Radio. It is unclear which is best. STANAG 5066 will give better performance if it is available.

Please note that Isode does not supply STANAG 5066 servers, these can be obtained from suppliers such as RapidM.

Server to Server Communications

Isode's core approach to HF and Satellite is to use server to serer communication only. There are two basic reasons for doing this and for not using any client/server protocols:

1. It enables use of standard client products, without any need to adapt to constrained networks, with special protocols or configuration.
2. It isolates the client from the network, and so isolates the user from network related performance problems.

Military Formal Messaging

Military Formal Messaging (STANAG 4406) defines protocols to work over Satellite and Radio, and Isode's implementation follows these standards for 'constrained networks'. These standards allow operation on mobile units and also define gateway procedures to 'high speed' environments. A configuration as shown above is typical.

Isode's solution for Military Formal Messaging is described in the Isode white paper Military Messaging over HF Radio and Satellite using STANAG 4406 Annex E.

Internet Messaging

Internet email is an important application. Isode provides this by use of the same ACP 142 infrastructure used by STANAG 4406. This provides an integrated solution for support of Internet Messaging. This is described in more detail in the white paper Messaging Protocols for HF Radio.

Isode uses protocols defined by Isode based on standards, as no appropriate standards exist. Isode would like to see standards in this area and is happy to provide its protocols as input.

Two standards for internet email over HF do exist, but Isode chose not to implement them. Both are defined in STANAG 5066:

• HMTP is a client/server email protocol, that is technically very weak.
• CFTP (also known as Battle Force Email) is an acceptable standard, which Isode will be happy to implement to meet customer requirements. However, it has a number of technical deficiencies relative to Isode protocols, discussed in the white paper, including:
• Lack of support for multicast and multi-point networks.
• Does not work over IP (it is STANAG 5066 only) so not suitable for satellite.

Directory Replication

Client/Server directory access over a slow network would give very poor user performance, so the best approach is to replicate directory data. Rather than define a special protocol, it is noted that email (both Internet and STANAG 4406) provide a reliable multicast infrastructure with data compression. This is a natural building block for directory replication, which Isode provides in it’s Sodium Sync product. This generates LDIF (LDAP Data Interchange Format) files to efficiently provide incremental changes to one or more peer directory servers. This is described in more detail in the Isode white paper Directory Replication by Email and over 'Air Gap'.

File Transfer

Isode provides 'File Transfer by Email' as an infrastructure component to support directory replication. This is a general purpose capability, that could be used to support end user file transfer, or other applications needed a reliable data exchange infrastructure. For example, it could be used to support database replication, This application is described in more detail in the Isode white paper File Transfer by Email.

XMPP for IM and Presence

Instant Messaging and Presence is of increasing importance for Military and Government deployments, as described in our XMPP Instant Messaging & Presence Solutions for Military and Government solutions page. Operating XMPP over slow Radio and Satellite networks has a number of difficulties to solve that are specific to this application and described in the white paper Operating XMPP over Radio and Satellite Networks. Isode plans to support XMPP over HF Radio and Satellite in a future product release.

Supporting Applications

Isode provides support for some additional capabilities over HF Radio, using its STANAG 5066 Console product shown above. This includes:

• Operator Chat - a simple protocol for basic HF Operator Communication, defined in STANAG 5066.
• Service Discovery, to facilitate setting up a STANAG 5066 application network.
• Performance testing, to help measure and test infrastructure.

More details are given on the STANAG 5066 Console product page.

Conclusions

Isode provides support for a wide range of applications over Radio and Satellite Networks.