Defense budgets are shrinking and life-cycle savings approaches are more important now than ever. The Live Training Domain encounters numerous challenges in maintaining and upgrading ranges and training equipment to align with technology advances. Today, Live Training Ranges (e.g., instrumented and live fire ranges) consist of a number of stovepipe architecture systems and components, which restricts their reusability by other ranges and diminishes the list of vendors from which compatible replacements and upgrades could be attained. Incompatibility between disparate systems forces removal and replacement of functioning components or the addition of adapters, which can lead to significant increases in cost and development time. Making modifications to components, whether by adding, removing, or upgrading, usually results in range downtime, which reduces valuable training opportunities for the Soldier.

This paper will assess the values, risks, and methods for adopting a modular Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) framework into an existing Product Line or Family of Training Systems, and will highlight several current implementations of SOA and their effects within the Live Training community. The interface standards defined and established at the onset of a SOA allow for interoperability between various distinct services. The inherent interoperability resulting from a well-structured SOA allows for reusability of its services across other programs as well as backwards and future compatibility of vendor-neutral components. Overall, the implementation of a platform and language independent SOA promotes reusability as well as agile and cost-effective system development. The features inherent in a SOA make it ideal for use in the Live Training domain where technologies are constantly emerging and evolving. A well-structured SOA would be congruent with and extend the existing architecture and product line investments within the training framework.