OEP Plan Reference Sheet SWIM
System-Wide Information Management (SWIM)
Flight Plan Goal #1 – Increased Safety
Objective #5 – Enhance the safety of FAA’s air traffic system
Flight Plan Goal #2 – Increased Capacity
Objective #1 – Increase Capacity to meet projected demand
Flight Plan Goal #3 – International Leadership
Objective #2 – Promote seamless operations around the globe in cooperation with bilateral, regional, and multilateral aviation partners
Flight Plan Goal #4 – Organizational Excellence
Objective #3 – Make decisions based on reliable data to improve our overall performance and customer satisfaction
Background / Need:
In the past, the state of the art for connecting two systems required a fixed network connection and custom, point-to-point, application-level data interface. Current NAS operations depend upon information systems developed over the previous several decades with connectivity based upon point-to-point interfaces among selected systems, with some systems entirely unconnected. There is a need to reduce the high degree of interdependence among systems and move away from the proliferation of unique, point-to-point application interfaces. This will lead to less expensive maintenance and improved extensibility.
A number of sources have documented shortfalls in the FAA’s current ability to share and manage information For example, the NAS Concept of Operations states the need to remove technological constraints and update procedures, roles and responsibilities, equipment and automation functions accordingly. Recent efforts to adopt more modern Information Technology (IT) concepts in the NAS through the Collaborative Decision-Making Network (CDM-Net) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Internet-protocol Routed Multi-user Network (FIRMNet) have produced some gains in timely data collections and distribution. However, these efforts produce sub-optimal solutions for the NAS as a whole in the absence of a well-defined concept to meet the need of data availability across all ATC domains, as well as availability to information consumers outside of the FAA.
The NAS Concept of Operations has also identified the future need for extensive information sharing between collaborating decision-makers. Flexibility in the distribution of roles and responsibilities in planning and ATC is needed to achieve dynamic collaborative decision making for re-routing in congested airspace or hazardous weather. The integration of various NAS information systems, along with information from NAS users and other information producers, will benefit the NAS by ensuring information interoperability for seamless communications.
The following identifies five key shortfalls that capture the key deficiencies of the FAA’s current approach to sharing and managing information:
- Costs to develop, test, deploy and support new interfaces and applications are too high.
- The NAS is not an agile air traffic system.
- Data sharing in the NAS is labor-intensive.
- Timely access to common data is lacking in the NAS.
- The underlying tools to support becoming a performance–based organization are currently lacking.
Solution(s):
The System Wide Information Management (SWIM) Program is a National Airspace System (NAS)-wide information web. SWIM will provide open, flexible, and secure information management architecture for sharing NAS operational data and enabling increased common situational awareness and improved NAS agility. SWIM uses commercial off-the-shelf hardware and software to support a new service-oriented NAS architecture (SOA) that allows adding new systems through loosely-coupled applications that uses the same software resulting in savings in development costs while improving service quality.
SWIM maximizes the use of current infrastructure and will be developed incrementally based on the needs of various data communities, maturity of concepts of use, and implementation phased segments that are sized to fit reasonable cost, schedule, and risk thresholds. Rather than developing a separate SWIM infrastructure, the program will provide SOA-based standards, guidance, and core capabilities software to NAS programs that will host the software on their existing hardware. If hardware for the existing program is not available, SWIM will procure hardware as part of a planned future release.
A service is a set of well defined, self-contained functions (or operations) offered by a software system. With a SOA, a service can be available using any communication protocol (procedure for transmitting and receiving data) and any data format. SWIM provides both the SOA technology infrastructure and the information management processes needed for consistent service development, operation and management enterprise-wide.
To define Segment 1, SWIM collaborated with stakeholders (called Communities of Interest (COIs)) who possess the expertise to accurately describe how information is currently being used in the NAS, predict future NAS information needs, and discern how to best fulfill those needs using a net-centric solution. COIs currently include Aeronautical Information Management (AIM), Flight and Flow Management (F&FM), and Weather; others (e.g., Surveillance) will form as needed over time.
The COIs determined that there were nine services that SWIM Segment 1 will provide:
- F&FM COI:
- Flight Data
- Terminal Data
- Flow Information
- Runway Visual Range (RVR)
- Re-Route Data
- AIM COI:
- Special Use Airspace (SUA) Automated
- Weather COI:
- Corridor Integrated Weather Service (CIWS)
- Integrated Terminal Weather Service (ITWS)
- Pilot Report (PIREP) Data.
Operational Benefits:
The following identifies the improvements to the current approach that SWIM will provide and which address the five key shortfalls enumerated in “Background / Need”.
The SWIM program provides direct benefits by addressing the first shortfall. SWIM addresses the remaining four shortfalls but delivers related benefits indirectly. Delivery of benefits associated with them requires resources outside of the SWIM program. These shortfalls capture the essence of the operational need for SWIM by highlighting current barriers to true system interoperability and outlining benefits mechanisms that help justify the SWIM program.
- Costs of developing and maintaining custom point-to-point interfaces limits connectivity.
SWIM enables:
- Reusable, loosely coupled interfaces versus many point-to-point interfaces
- Reduced time and complexity for building new applications and interfacing existing applications
- Common shared services for information management replacing costly redundancies
- The NAS is difficult to dynamically adapt to special events, disruptions and changing NAS user business models.
SWIM facilitates:
- Greater independence of geographical facilities and operations
- Easier and quicker system failure recovery
- Special events planning and implementation
- Automation and platform convergence consistent with the NAS Enterprise Architecture
- Agility requires rapid, widespread and cost-effective dissemination of information. The current NAS infrastructure makes this cost prohibitive.
- SWIM provides the conduit so that shared data can be published once and distributed electronically.
- A lack of shared situational awareness limits visibility into the current state of the NAS for NAS users and their customers.
- SWIM makes published data available to all authorized users
- The information required to measure and monitor NAS performance is often not available; this limits the ability of the FAA to meet its goal to become a performance-based organization.
- SWIM provides a mechanism so that published data can possibly be mined for appropriate metrics.
