The High-Level Architecture (HLA) is the leading international standard for simulation interoperability.  It originated in the defense communities but is increasingly used in other domains. This tutorial gives an introduction to the HLA standard in general and the new HLA 4 version in particular. It describes the requirements for interoperability, flexibility, composability and reuse and how HLA meets them. It also describes the new features of the most recent version: HLA 4, such as security, scalability and cloud deployment. Finally, it provides some recent experiences of the use of HLA in NATO M&S groups as well as an overview of recent evolution of Federation Object Models for military platform simulation, space simulation, cyber simulation and air traffic control simulation. This tutorial is intended for all audiences; however, some familiarity with basic principles of distributed computing is recommended.

Keywords
ARCHITECTURE, INTEROPERABILITY, OPEN STANDARDS, TRAINING