An Overview of the upcoming Communications Systems Primer: A Systems Engineer's Guide to Communications Networks: Modeling Networks as Systems

Susan Ronning (ADCOMM Engineering LLC)
Keith Rothschild (Cox Communications)
Thomas Manley (Decision Analysis Services Ltd)
William Scheible (MITRE Corporation)

Keywords
Communications;Systems Engineering;System of Systems;Modeling;INCOSE;Network Services;Telecommunications
Abstract

The Communications Systems Primer provides guidance on how to identify the many constituent systems that might collectively provide the communications services used by an organization.


Most modern IT and technology based systems rely heavily on networking to obtain and disperse the information they were designed for. And most Systems Engineers know little about the world of modern networking services and capabilities. In fact, many modern solutions rely upon components communicating through networks that are shared between multiple applications and/or are managed by third parties. The nature of those network services requires them to be treated differently than dedicated communications links.


The primer identifies the communication networks that a Systems Engineer may encounter; the unique considerations that should be contemplated with designing a Systems of Systems that rely upon one or more shared communication networks; and define the basic modeling requirements and techniques for including network services and resources into a systems model.