Over the past decade, the Department of Defense (DoD) developed an emergent network of systems that operate together on the battlefield to provide value to the DoD. Advances in systems engineering have enabled the DoD to develop better, more integrated, and more complex systems in this time frame. One of the emerging topics in systems engineering is the importance of nonfunctional attributes captured in the ilities of a system. One of these ilities, interoperability, captures the ability of a system to operate with other systems as DoD systems do on the battlefield. This article applies social network analysis tools and methods to understand the effect of expanding the definition of interoperability beyond information flows to include shared resources and physical connections. Social network analysis metrics, such as density and average degree, quantify the effect of expanding interoperability to capture other aspects of interoperability. By capturing these additional aspects of interoperability, the number of connections in the DoD network of systems increases by nearly a factor of four. Thus, if the ility of interoperability narrowly focuses on information flows, then systems engineers could potentially miss a large number of important connections in a network of systems.

中文翻译：

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通过社交网络分析了解扩大互操作性定义的重要性

在过去的十年中，国防部（DoD）开发了一个新兴的系统网络，这些系统在战场上共同运作，为DoD提供价值。系统工程的进步使国防部能够在这个时间范围内开发更好，更集成，更复杂的系统。系统工程中新兴的主题之一是在系统的缺陷中捕获非功能属性的重要性。互操作性是这些不便之一，它捕获了一个系统与DoD系统在战场上所做的其他系统一起运行的能力。本文应用社交网络分析工具和方法来了解将互操作性定义扩展到信息流之外（包括共享资源和物理连接）的影响。社交网络分析指标，例如密度和平均程度，量化扩展互操作性以捕获互操作性其他方面的影响。通过捕获这些互操作性的其他方面，系统在DoD网络中的连接数几乎增加了四倍。因此，如果互操作性的范围狭窄地集中在信息流上，那么系统工程师可能会错过系统网络中的大量重要连接。