Building Multilevel Secure Web Services-Based Components for the Global Information Grid

A consensus is growing that the Department of Defense’s vision of a future Global Information Grid will be built using architecture that takes advantage of Web services and uses standard Internet protocols, interchangeable components, and commercially available hardware and software wherever possible. This article describes the features and architecture of two systems: the Trusted Services Engine and the Multilevel Document Collaboration Server, including their use of a separation kernel with multiple independent levels of security, the design and assurance architecture of the cross-domain blockaccess controller, and the composition architecture that extends the inter-level isolation property from the block access controller outward through complex services. CDR Scott Heller Program Executive Office C4I and Space