Technologies Engineering, Inc.
February 6, 2016
Starship Software Suite for Distributed Test and Training
Introduction
Starship is a suite of software tools that automate distributed event planning, configuration,
verification/validation, initialization, execution, monitoring, quick-look review, shutdown,
and after action review (AAR).
Starship was developed and is maintained by the Program Executive Office Simulation,
Training and Instrumentation (PEO STRI), Project Manager for Instrumentation, Targets and
Threat Simulators (PM ITTS) for the Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC).
Starship is a government-off- the-shelf (GOTS) product that is available to the qualified
Government agencies or their contractors at no cost on digital media.
Starship supports distributed environments throughout the country employing High Level
Architecture (HLA) and Test and Training Enabling Architecture (TENA) protocols.
Specifically, Starship is the Training and Doctrine Command’s tool of choice for developing
doctrinally-correct mission threads; is the Central Technical Support Facility’s primary tool to
perform Army Command and Control Interoperability Certification Testing; and is the test
control subsystem of the Joint Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence,
Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) (JC4ISR) Interoperability Test and Evaluation
Capability (InterTEC), a Central Test and Evaluation Investment Program.
Functionality
Planning:
Starship allows a user to either build a distributed laydown from scratch or import a laydown
and modify it as needed. The laydown consists of the wide area network, the network
devices, their locations and addresses, the computers and systems connected by the network,
the middleware-specific devices, and the ports and protocols used by the software deployed
on the network.
Configuration:
Starship allows a user to generate the “cutsheet” associated with the planned distributed
laydown. The cutsheet contains all significant network devices, their addresses, and names
allowing network engineers to implement and configure the network as planned.
Verification/Validation:
Starship allows a user to verify/validate that the distributed laydown was setup as planned.
The verification/validation can be as sophisticated as the detail in the plan and can get to the
versioning of the deployed software.
Initialization:
Starship allows a user to initialize all network devices/software/instrumentation for which the
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) exist. The initialization can be as sophisticated as the
APIs allow.
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Technologies Engineering, Inc.
February 6, 2016
Execution:
Starship allows a user to build and execute threads that will orchestrate the execution of the
event. The threads consist of conditionally linked commands based upon the APIs to all
network devices/software/instrumentation. The threads can start, pause, restart, and stop
network devices/software/instrumentation as well as put the network
devices/software/instrumentation into the appropriate state consistent with the intent of the
event stages. A user can execute individual commands and/or threads on an ad hoc basis.
Monitoring:
Starship allows a user monitor the status of all network devices/software/instrumentation and
the execution of the event threads. The user can program thresholds on any reported property.
The tripped thresholds can notify the user graphically or initiate thread execution.
Quick-look review:
Starship provides user-configurable, displays and reports that support network
devices/software/instrumentation quick-look review and the analysis of trends.
Shutdown:
Starship allows a user stop, prepare, and harvest data from network
devices/software/instrumentation either manually through individually issued Starship
commands or by executing user-created execution threads. Starship allows the user to
monitor the shutdown process graphically.
AAR:
Starship allows a user to perform an AAR from the test control perspective by presenting the
planned execution and the actually-occurred execution. Starship can generate a report
indicating what was done to include pertinent user entered additional information.
Flexibility
Starship XML Interface (StaX):
In addition to prebuilt proprietary interfaces including standard HLA and TENA interfaces,
Starship can interface with any network devices/software/instrumentation that uses the
Starship XML (StaX) interface specification. StaX is unique in that it allows an instrument or
application developer to build a custom Starship XML interface without any prior
coordination with the Starship development team. This allows instrumentation software to be
quickly modified to accommodate changing test requirements. Starship is distributed with the
StaX software developers kit (SDK) and reference StaX application including source code.
Starship SDK:
In addition to the StaX SDK focused primarily on external interfaces, Starship has an
“internal” SDK that allows relevant data to be added to the Starship execution (and its
database). This enables Starship to present a richer user experience by leveraging data collect
during event execution that is not reported directly to Starship. An example of this is the
addition of tactical communication messaging traffic collected by instrumentation during
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Technologies Engineering, Inc.
February 6, 2016
Army interoperability certification testing. This allows Starship to present the planned vs. the
actual mission thread on the same timeline.
Operating System Agents (OS Agent):
The OS Agent is a light-weight, optional, configurable console application that responds to
remote commands and reports status information for the machine on which it is running. OS
Agent interfaces with the operating system (e.g., Windows, Linux, and Solaris) to retrieve
health-and-welfare status information such as available disk space, memory usage, CPU
utilization, and much more. This information is gathered from remote machines at a userconfigurable interval and reported to Starship. In addition to viewing this status information,
the Starship user can issue commands to any OS Agent causing it to initiate a pre-defined
action on its local machine. Commands range from those related to the operation of OS
Agent--such as start, stop, pause, and resume the reporting process--to broader-scoped
commands--such as launch a process, terminate an already-running process or shutdown or
reboot the machine. The broader-scoped commands are completely configurable by the user
or system administrator of the local machine. Permission must be explicitly set in the OS
Agent configuration file to allow someone to shutdown or reboot the system or to launch or
terminate some or all processes.
Integration
Starship has also been used as an integrating and unifying user interface for a federation of
complex applications that to use effectively would otherwise require a dozen subject matter
experts. Starship is the user interface and performs the planning, configuration,
verification/validation, initialization, execution, monitoring, quick-look review, shutdown,
and AAR for the Command, Control, and Communications Driver federation of applications.
Platform
Starship is a modular, scalable application suite built on the Microsoft .NET platform and
runs under the assorted Windows operating systems. For performance Starship utilizes an
unmanaged C++ engine that performs low level data processing and data communications and
employs the Microsoft MS SQL Server database management system for data storage and
retrieval.
Summary
Starship is a Government-owned software suite used by the test and training communities to
automate distributed event planning, configuration, verification/validation, initialization,
execution, monitoring, quick-look review, shutdown, and AAR. Through user-configurable
views and reports, Starship allows a user to orchestrate all aspects of a distributed event and
provides fused information thereby reducing time, manpower, while increasing accuracy and
situational awareness.
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