Ideas behind the infrastructure.

White papers, technical articles, and press coverage from the Skayl team and the open-standards community.

White Papers

• Data Model Court
  A fictionalized debate regarding advanced data model approaches — examining the tradeoffs between competing modeling philosophies in defense systems integration.
  Dec 2023 by Chris Allport

• Achieving Warfighting Lethality via System and Semantic System-of-Systems Model-Based Engineering
  How model-based engineering at the system-of-systems level enables the semantic alignment required for true joint interoperability.
  Apr 2021 by Gordon Hunt, Chris Allport, Shaun Foley & Sonya Hand

• Just Enough Data Model: A Hero's Journey Into The Modeling World
  A practitioner's guide to right-sizing data modeling effort — what to model, when to model it, and how to avoid over-engineering.
  Jun 2020 by Chris Allport

• Interface Documentation Maturity Levels (IDML): An Introduction
  A framework for assessing and advancing the maturity of interface documentation in defense programs — from ad hoc to fully model-driven.
  Sep 2018 by Sonya Hand, Dave Lombardi & Gordon Hunt

• Why Should I Care? It's All About Me: The Multiple Value Propositions of FACE
  An examination of the FACE™ standard from every stakeholder's perspective — why it matters to program offices, platform owners, and software vendors alike.
  Sep 2017 by Gordon Hunt, Chris Allport & Sonya Hand

• Data Modeling Is Hard vs. Data Modeling is Hard
  Unpacking two distinct claims about data modeling difficulty — and why conflating them leads programs to the wrong tools, wrong teams, and wrong timelines.
  Mar 2017 by Chris Allport & Gordon Hunt

Articles

• Infrastructure-Centric Integration
  The case for treating integration as infrastructure — not as a project phase. What changes when integration is a managed layer rather than a one-time effort.
  Mar 2022 by Shaun Foley

• Drawing Distinctions Among Data Modeling Challenges: Tool vs. Technique
  A precise look at where data modeling problems originate — and why throwing better tooling at a technique problem (or vice versa) consistently fails.
  Jul 2021 by Sonya Hand

• Semantic Model-Based Engineering for Integration: New Paradigms in Systems Development
  How semantic MBE changes the integration equation — moving from syntactic data mapping to meaning-preserving interoperability across heterogeneous systems.
  Apr 2021 by Gordon Hunt, Shaun Foley, Chris Allport & Sonya Hand

Blogs

• Skayl Invited by NAVAIR to Be Part of SBIR/STTR Innovation Hub
  Skayl was nominated to attend Navy Gold Coast in San Diego as part of the SBIR/STTR Innovation Hub — connecting naval aviation innovation with small business research.
  Sep 2022 by Skayl

• Skayl Demonstrates Rapid Integration at TSOA-ID
  A live demonstration of CinC-enabled rapid integration at the Technical Standards Open Architecture — Interoperability Demonstration event.
  Mar 2022 by Skayl

• Skayl Presents at Aerospace Tech Week 2021
  Skayl's presentation at Aerospace Tech Week 2021 — covering the state of open-standards integration and the path forward for MOSA-aligned programs.
  Nov 2021 by Shaun Foley

• FACE™ Crosses the Atlantic for Aerospace Tech Week
  How the FACE™ standard is gaining international traction — and what that means for allied interoperability and multinational program alignment.
  Jul 2021 by Sonya Hand

• US Army's Mission System Architecture Demonstration (MSAD): The Architect's Perspective
  An inside look at the MSAD program from the systems architect's chair — what the demonstration proved, and what the Army learned about open-architecture integration at scale.
  Apr 2021 by Gordon Hunt

• Open Source, Open Standards, Open Systems
  Clarifying the distinctions between open source, open standards, and open systems architectures — and why conflating them produces different (and often worse) outcomes.
  Jan 2019 by Shaun Foley

Press

• Skayl Featured in 2022 FACE Special Edition
  Skayl's work on FACE-aligned integration infrastructure featured in the official 2022 FACE Special Edition publication from The Open Group.
  May 2022 by Gordon Hunt

• Navy's SBIR Investment in SoS Integration Expands to Benefit Army, AirForce, NATO & Commercial
  How Skayl's Navy-funded SBIR research became a multi-domain integration capability with applicability across all services and allied partners.
  Jan 2021 by Skayl

Podcasts

• Ep. 1 – Introducing Three Guys & a Data Model
  The inaugural episode. What is a data model, why does it matter, and why would anyone do a podcast about it?
  Mar 2017 by Chris Allport, Dave Lombardi & Jacob

• Ep. 2 – Message Models vs. Data Models
  Message models and data models aren't the same thing. What's the difference, and does it matter in practice?
  Jun 2017 by Skayl

• Ep. 3 – Postmortem: The Largest Data Model Ever
  A postmortem on one of the Largest-Data-Models-Ever — taming all that data was a tough job. Here are the lessons.
  Sep 2017 by Skayl

• Ep. 4 – The Grocery Store Analogy
  Dave's Famous Grocery Store Analogy makes data architecture accessible — even for the newly initiated.
  Aug 2018 by Dave Lombardi, Chris Allport, Sonya Hand & Taylor

• Ep. 5 – Introducing the IDML Framework
  The Interface Documentation Maturity Levels (IDML) framework: a qualitative tool for assessing integration readiness.
  Sep 2018 by Skayl

• Ep. 6 – Explain It to an English Major
  Chris, Dave, and Sonya explain Skayl from first principles — for Taylor, the podcast host and resident English Major.
  Jan 2019 by Chris Allport, Dave Lombardi & Sonya Hand

• Ep. 7 – Why Data Model?
  What's the difference between syntax and semantics? What does data modeling actually cost? A ground-level discussion.
  Feb 2019 by Dave Lombardi, Sonya Hand, Jacob & Taylor