I'm currently working on a project trying to get its arms around what makes something a "Distributed networked system". For the most part its like pornography - people recognize it when they see it, and tend not to agree to what someone else thinks is "it" when THEY see it.

Anybody out there doing work in this area in the other services? FCS? Air force info to the cockpit stuff? Marine "Dragon of the month"?

At what point do you depart from "network enabling an platform-centric, but fundamentally heirarchical operating environment" and get beyond the lightning bolts and pixie dust? Since we are not going to just lead with both feet from heirarchical platform based (though web-enabled) is there a tipping point where you suddenly become "network-centric"and get to enjoy all the cool supposed benefits? (and just add a bunch of network vulnerabilites to a platform-centric operating environment for marginal gains? Is "web-enabled platform - centric" all we really need?

Then there is the "enterprise -wide system of system engineering" stuff... Talk about culture changes!

Well, anybody with thoughts on the topic, cynical and jaded, or wide - eyed and bushy tailed, I'd be interested!

Thanks,

Paul