This book deals with the overall concepts of Net Centricity and the net-centric perspective on the government, military, commercial and personal information awareness. Net Centricity is a borrowed word from the United States Department of Defense and the active military. It translates information superiority into military prowess by effectively linking knowledgeable entities within the battlefield space. However, this book focuses on the military net-centric concept because it is a harbinger to a new way of conducting ourselves within the government and commercial marketplace.
Fundamental Change of the Current State
The net-centric approach promotes a fundamental change in the way that we conduct our operations. It steps forward from the Industrial Age when we were all tethered to our offices and facilities and were performing work based on stepwise processes and hierarchical management decision making. The new net-centric approach allows asynchronous information assimilation and ad-hoc decision making based on a collective knowledge environment.
The Internet as we currently know it is an early instantiation of the upcoming net-centric transformation. The all-encompassing net-centric approach is a complex concept. Within our book, Net Centricity specifically refers to exploitation of upcoming technologies that provides users the ability to access software applications and Internet-based information services. The expectation is that these applications will be spread over a globally connected information environment that is comprised of interoperable computing and communication components.
In this book, we are using the terms “net-centric” and “Net Centricity” interchangeably. We recognize that in the next decade these terms may take on broader connotations, as these concepts go through a period of adoption. The concepts have traveled beyond the realm of today’s military infrastructure, and onto commercial and consumer industries. The term, net-centric can easily be used in the context of the World Wide Web and the Internet, since this is the most well known form of the interconnected, collaborative concept that is at the heart of the term, Net Centricity.
As these terms traverse through the civilian and commercial sectors, the definitions of the terms are changing based on the correct fit and context. A broad definition of net-centric principles would be to:
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Participate in a continuously-evolving, complex community of people and devices
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Provide information and services that are interconnected by a communications network to achieve optimal benefit of resources and better synchronization of events and their consequences.
Although we will focusing a significant portion of this book dealing with the defense and military enterprise, we will be continually be referring to the more broad definition of Net Centricity as it applies to a variety of governments and commercial entities.