M&SCO provides an RTI verification service to the general HLA user community. HLA users who select RTIs verified by M&SCO can have confidence that these products have been rigorously tested for compliance to the HLA standard. At present, verification is offered without cost to any RTI developer. The HLA program is strengthened by quality software products from US and International suppliers in both the public and private sectors. Thus, all RTI developers are encouraged to register for verification.

Verification is the process of comparison with a standard. The standard used for RTI verification consists of both a particular version of the HLA Interface Specification and a particular release of the U.S. DoD Interpretations of the specified version of the HLA Interface Specification. The Interface Specification describes the services provided by the RTI to a federate and those services provided by a federate to the RTI. Services are described in the Specification by their parameters, textual descriptions, state diagrams, preconditions, and postconditions. This information is used to determine the expected RTI behavior during testing.

For the purposes of the US DoD, the Director of M&SCO will render, with technical advice from the RTI Verification Facility, the definitive judgment as to the compliance by an RTI implementation to the HLA Specification. An RTI implementation will be verified for a particular combination of Interface Specification version, DOD Interpretations release, Application Programmer's Interface (API), and Computational Platform. The combinations supported for verification are chosen by the Director. RTI developers specify which Interface Specification version, API, and Computational Platform they wish to be used for verification when they register for testing. Verification across multiple APIs and Computational Platforms is not provided at this time. A status board giving the progress of RTIs through the verification process is provided on this site. RTI developers may choose, when they register for testing, to have their product's testing status displayed.

An RTI is never determined to have failed verification. It remains in testing until the Director is satisfied with the RTI Verification Facility results. The rate of verification testing depends on resource availability and the quality of the RTI implementation. Verification priority between multiple RTIs is determined by the Director.

Verification testing has two levels. Level One Testing consists of a small, publicly-available set of tests that demonstrate basic understanding of the HLA Interface Specification. These tests are intended to focus support from the Verification Facility on serious RTI developers. Because these tests are available from this web site, RTI developers can know if their RTI will pass Level One Testing before they submit their software. Feedback from Level One Testing to the RTI developer is limited to notification that they are ready for Level Two Testing or they should retry the Level One tests and resubmit their software.

Level Two tests are very large in number and are intended to rigorously test RTIs from developers who have demonstrated serious intent. The Level Two tests are divided into five phases. Each phase addresses different sections of the Interface Specification as follows:

Feedback from Level Two Testing is addressed to a particular phase in individual reports to the developer. RTI developers may choose to submit revised software after testing for any phase is completed. The RTI Verification Facility may request revised software after testing for any phase is completed. The RTI Verification Facility determines when and if testing for a given phase is to be conducted based on the experience of previous phases. The sequence of phase testing and retesting is also determined by the RTI Verification Facility.

The RTI Verification Facility will recommend to the Director that an RTI implementation be considered verified when a single version of the RTI software passes all Phases.

• HLA Interface Specification
• Register
• Status Board
• Level One Testing