SWIM Technology and Implementation

System Wide Information Management (SWIM) enables the sharing of information between diverse systems enabling the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) to deliver the right information to the right place at the right time. The program achieves this by providing the IT Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) enterprise infrastructure necessary for NAS systems to share and reuse information and increase interoperability. SOA is a way of organizing IT assets, policies, practices, and frameworks that enable application functionality to be provided and consumed as services that can be invoked, published and discovered. This infrastructure enables systems to publish information of interest to NAS users, request and receive information from other NAS services, and support NAS security requirements. Further, SWIM provides governance to NAS programs to ensure services are SWIM compliant and meet all FAA SOA standards.

SWIM's approach allows software applications in the NAS to interact with one another through information services that can be accessed without knowledge of an application's underlying platform implementation. This simplifies interface requirements to existing NAS systems and ensures new systems can be built with minimum technology (hardware, software, and data definition) constraints. SWIM also enables the transition to net-centric NAS operations, and from tactical conflict management to strategic, trajectory-based operations.

The System Wide Information Management (SWIM) Program is being implemented in segments. In each segment, a set of NAS services is being developed and integrated via SWIM. Enterprise infrastructure is added to support the implementation of capabilities associated with the segments. SWIM enterprise infrastructure will enable systems to request and receive information when they need it, subscribe for automatic receipt, and publish information as appropriate. This will provide for sharing of information among diverse systems.

One such system distributing information via SWIM is the SWIM Flight Data Publication Service (SFDPS). This service provides en route flight and related data to National Airspace System (NAS) consumers and external consumers. Learn more on the SFDPS page.

Last updated: Friday, February 9, 2018