With the push for the Modeling & Simulation (M&S) community to move to the High Level Architecture(HLA) the Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) organization saw a need to expand the scope of the standards activity and opportunity to be more inclusive. In response, DIS has transitioned to a new structure and taken positive steps to reach out and inform non-traditional elements of the Modeling and Simulation community of the need for public standards to support M&S interoperability and the opportunity that will exist for them to participate, as well as the need. An initial focus for developing new standards is the DoD High Level Architecture.

The new organization is called the Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization (SISO). Its purposes are to develop standards that facilitate simulation interoperability, provide educational and technical interchanges, and share knowledge and experiences between participants having common interests. SISO has been organized along two functional lines, one focuses on standards development and the other on conducting workshops and conferences which are guided by an Executive Committee. One component is the Simulation Interoperability Workshop(SIW) which provides bi-annual meetings where members of the M&S community come together to discuss new ideas, concepts, and technology across the broad M&S community; to disseminate these ideas; to educate M&S practitioners and sponsors regarding their implementation; and to support the development of standards, practices, and guides for use in various applications. The other component of SISO, the standards development activity, is responsible for the development of the standards needed to promote and support interoperable simulation.

This paper will describe the above organization, provide a report on the status of new standards that are evolving and on future SISO goals.