NATO seeks Second Life tenders

by Tateru Nino Sep 2nd 2009 at 12:00PM

Filed under: News items, Second Life, Virtual worlds

The NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) Supreme Headquarters Allied Command Transformation is presently seeking tenders for the construction of a proof-of-concept site in a virtual environment. "The first scenario is to replicate a generic headquarters compound for a NATO operation. ... The second scenario will involve replicating the Headquarters Supreme Allied Command Transformation in Norfolk, USA. The only acceptable worlds that may provide a solution to this statement of work are Second Life by Linden Labs[sic], OLIVE by Forterra, or NEXUS by ECS."

Actually, this part's a little confusing, because of the three virtual environments specified as 'acceptable', only one (Forterra's OLIVE) actually meets the minimum criteria given in the solicitation. NATO SHQACT acknowledges this in a subsequent clarification document, but is still seeking Second Life submissions anyway. As it stands, it doesn't seem like any existing Second Life developer can actually meet the stringent Defense Contract requirements in any case, and submissions close on the 8th of this month.

It's a curious situation, overall, and leaves us scratching our heads. SHQACT insists that it wants Second Life tenders, yet Second Life does not meet the minimum technical requirements, specifically:

must run fully behind or through firewalls using a single open port of choice
should be able to run SSL encryption if desired for increased security

Still, according to article VIII of the Paris Protocol (1952), all the goods and services are tax and duty free, and that's got to be an attractive notion. We don't see any platform winning this one other than OLIVE though.

Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.

Tags: ecs, forterra, linden-lab, nato, nexus, olive, second-life

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Dale Innis said on 12:46PM 9-02-2009

It's usually sufficient to meet the spirit of the specs if you can't meet the letter of them. So for instance a proposal to do the initial build in the Second Life main grid, with the intent of moving it to a behind-the-firewall SL instance at some point before the high security is required, might well be acceptable.

(Note that I have no specific knowledge about this request for tenders, or about any specific possible tender; I'm just speaking generally from prior experience with vaguely-similar things. And that was the US government rather than NATO, although I would guess that they're rather similar in this respect.)

RiHahn said on 1:02PM 9-02-2009

Mmm, RFPs...

Usually, the way this works is that they already know who will be doing the work, they are just bound by law to get three bids for the job... Even if someone is half the price of the others, it's a simple matter to justify the winner as far as the paperwork is concidered. :)

Frans Charming said on 3:16PM 9-02-2009

Yea, Nebreska might be secure enough.

Rik Riel said on 6:37PM 9-02-2009

Other tough requirements for SL:
• Have the ability to display and read documents in common formats such as MS Office and Adobe.
• Support up to 200 avatars in the same area.
• Access the virtual world by allowing phone based attendees (those without access to a PC) to hear and be heard in-world. Full record and playback of all activities conducted in-world
• Import own 3D objects. Supports large area and multi-resolution terrain data in a WGS-84 compliant, geospatially-referenced format

Rik Riel said on 6:49PM 9-02-2009

In related news, the US Army is asking the public to help the government use virtual worlds for training and analysis.

http://www.betterverse.org/2009/09/federal-virtual-world-challenge-launched.html

Jay said on 12:52AM 9-03-2009

Have to laugh at a few things.

A clause labeled "Termination for Convenience.". This is the USA/NATO we are speaking about, so if you don't do exactly what they say they will come get you.

A clause stating "all equipment, materials and articles incorporated in the work covered by this contract are to be new and of the most suitable grade of their respective kinds for the purposes intended. " Heaven help you if you use a recycled prim!

However I do worry about something too, are these worlds inherently secure enough to host a symposium of 200+ people with incoming voice? Would not a meeting of NATO in the virtual realm be a nice juicy target for spies, especially as the packet structure for at least one of these worlds is actually known.

This is not Macdonalds secretly discussing their new Angus beef burger... this is a military organisation with quite a few dirty secrets.

Gwyneth Llewelyn said on 10:35AM 9-03-2009

From the questions that were submitted to NATO and the PDF they published with the answers, I'd say that at the very least one SL developer — and very likely more — have indeed submitted proposals, or are intending to do so, since many of the SL-related questions are quite thorough and pragmatic, and so are the answers: SL is definitely allowed as a solution, and seems even to be "preferred".

@Jay, I very much doubt that any of the top secret talks will be held in SL :) After all, the military have their own Internet; and NATO does waaaaaay more things than "top secret" meetings...

Coyle Brenmann said on 10:49AM 9-12-2009

I reviewed the RFP, and submitted the questions toward the end of the deadline that pointed out Second Life’s inability to meet some of the original technical performance requirements: single port through firewall capability, vendor required hosting, SSL. I also pointed out to my team that a large majority of these technical requirements were taken directly from OLIVE’s own website, almost forcing the hand of NATO to either remove SL as a viable solution, or adjust their requirements. This work led to the final Q&A answers that cleared up SL’s ability to offer a competitive solution. Yet, we see who still won the contract--Nexus

While ACT has a sim within SL, it was not suitable for this RFP for many reasons including originally not meeting the RFP’s technical requirements. SL in general fell short on many other aspects compared to OLIVE and Nexus solutions including native support of MS Office documents and competitive HTML support in-world (in addition to some of the other advantages of Nexus represented above in earlier comments).

Second Life, in the real world, still has many obstacles to overcome if it wants to be USED as a successful platform for immersive meetings/training. A majority of the real life companies using Second Life still make use of the word “experiment” when referring to their sims while other organizations leave this word out when they’ve chosen OLIVE or Nexus. Unfortunate, but true for Linden Labs if this is a strategic direction and competitive landscape they see in their future.

Dedric Mauriac said on 6:22PM 9-03-2009

1. Must run fully behind or through firewalls using a single open port of choice

Um ... Doesn't OpenSIM already offer this? I'm sure I'm doing this on my own sim as I had to open a specific port on my firewall (that i defined myself) to allow people to get into it.

2. Should be able to run SSL encryption if desired for increased security

I may be wrong, but I believe there is already encryption capabilities with SSL built into OpenSIM. I'll have to look into it to see if it is possible to make use of it and purchase a certificate.

JeanRicard Broek said on 10:38PM 9-06-2009

I downloaded the RFP and addendum..You are right the advanced features required are a stretch for SL at least at this date & time. I will be curious to know who wins the bid and the amount of the contract award which will be decided in Mid September. I hope you can follow up and that this information will become public knowledge.