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TBS — Theatre Broadcast Software

The TBS is a suite of software, researched and developed over more than 7 years, which provides a large capacity, high speed data highway for the modern defence force. It is primarily intended for military use, where secure and traceable communication of very large data sets to remote forces via satellite is required. It is designed for simplex operation, with enhanced functionality when a full duplex connection is available.

Its main use is for satellite communication systems, however, it is equally at home in terrestrial wireless and wired networks as it is hardware independent.

Currently TBS is used by Australian land and maritime forces.

Enhanced Reliable Transfer

The TBS utilises a unique fully-traceable, information-managed transfer process. The reliability of received data is substantially enhanced by a proprietary assurance system using forward error correction and verification. In the event that the data does not get through (0.01% of data), the TBS tells you exactly how far it did get with full verification at each stage.

Network Centric Warfare

The TBS is the ideal platform to support NCW. It provides a reliable, high capacity backbone for today's defence information payload. The generous bandwidth is particularly suited to situational awareness information and high-resolution reconnaissance imagery.

Real-time Adaptive Bandwidth Utilisation

Satellite bandwidth is an extremely expensive commodity, so the Ebor system dynamically adapts to fully utilise every available byte for the best military value. It implements a user-adjustable expert system that takes the overhead out of the operation and leaves the war-fighting to the user.

Deployable Anywhere

The TBS is network hardware independent - current common deployments include land and maritime installations.
The Information Management benefits of the TBS are no longer limited to satellite systems as it is equally suitable for terrestrial wireless and wired networks.

Real-time Scheduling of Transmissions

The TBS does not require long scheduling lead-times; jobs can be scheduled as required by the user and the system will take care of prioritisation.

Seamless Lotus Notes Database over UDP

A novel and unique technology was developed to allow replication of very large IBM Lotus Domino databases over simplex links. Not only does this achieve something not thought previously possible, but it also uses less bandwidth than a duplex link requires.

Seamless Reliable Email Transfer

A proprietary SMTP gateway, which utilises the reliable transfer architecture, is fully integrated into the TBS. It can easily be configured to use any SMTP server such as Microsoft's Exchange, or IBM's Lotus Domino.

Real-time Instant-messaging

Full IP connectivity including integrated live-chat software is provided when a full duplex link is available.

Low Bandwidth Support Capability

System optimisation allows highly productive communication with very low data pipes.

Deployed Web-browsing Capability

The core elements of the TBS system are reused to maximum advantage, providing low cost and high speed deployed web browsing of frequently used sites.

Information Managed

The TBS is built upon an information management methodology that provides security, disk-quota, bandwidth quota, and prioritisation controls at every level of the hierarchy.

Fully-flexible Video Streaming

Continuous and contiguous data streams are fully integrated with support for video briefs and quality-of-life (QOL) transmissions without interrupting discrete transfer services.

Centralised Logging

Important data transfers and system configuration changes are logged to a central database. This is used for auditing, analysis and optimisation of system usage.

Information Dissemination Package — IDP

The IDP software is the primary means for users and applications to send messages through the TBS. The IDP was initially developed as a Concept Technology Demonstrator, and has since been enhanced to provide additional functionality and full software engineering documentation. Its use as part of the TBS has been directed by the Commonwealth.

The IDP contains two main applications. The Information Dissemination Server (IDS) operates at the Primary Injection Facility and any TBS Receive sites. It stores messages for the users it manages, and forwards other messages to other IDSs. The Information Dissemination Client (IDC) is an application that communicates with an IDS, so that users can read messages, view files sent to them, send messages, and trace the progress of sent messages.

The IDP incorporates the Information Dissemination Manager (IDM) functionality, which controls information flow through the system by applying control to user/group transfer permissions. The IDP directs messages containing either simple text or data files to the intended recipients, and tracks the progress of individual items of mail if required.

The PIF acts as a central IDS. Messages received at this IDS are sent through the TBS broadcast to TBS receive sites (TBS Rx). Sites that have the IDP system configured, receive these messages, and deliver them to local users. All IDP messages that are within limits or authorised by an IDM are passed on to the MBS and then to the Reliable Delivery subsystem for delivery. The receive sites send information back to the PIF through another communications link, known as the back-link. Since the back-link is not always available, the receive site needs to store messages for delivery when the back-link becomes available.

Hardware