scope:

This recommended practice defines the processes and procedures that should be followed to implement Verification, Validation, and Acceptance/Accreditation (VV&A) for distributed simulations being developed using the Distributed Simulation Engineering and Execution Process (DSEEP). This recommended practice is not intended to replace existing VV&A policies, procedures, and guidance, but rather is intended to focus on the unique aspects of the VV&A of distributed simulations. It provides a higher-level framework into which such practices can be integrated and tailored for specific uses. The VV&A overlay provides implementationlevel guidance to VV&A practitioners; however, it does not describe the individual techniques that might be employed to execute the VV&A processes for distributed simulations.

Users, developers, and VV&A personnel working with simulations and simulation compositions not based upon the DSEEP can also benefit from the guidance in this document since the activities that this overlay describes can be tailored to support any type of distributed simulation application. Guidance for specific integrating standards [High-Level Architecture (HLA), Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS), Test and Training Enabling Architecture (TENA), etc.] is provided in the annexes.

Purpose

The VV&A overlay has been designed to apply across a wide range of functional applications. The purpose of this overlay is to provide a more detailed view of the VV&A processes implied by the DSEEP. Currently, these processes represent the best practices available to the VV&A community. The VV&A Overlay is a tailorable process and is offered as guidance to all participants in DSEEP VV&A activities.

This overlay identifies and describes the recommended VV&A processes that should be followed to assure the acceptability and utility of distributed simulations for particular intended uses. The overlay also identifies and describes the information central to and resulting from those processes as well as the relationships between the DSEEP and the VV&A processes and their respective information products. In addition, this overlay defines those terms uniquely needed to characterize the DSEEP VV&A overlay.

This overlay takes special care to use and build upon existing standards, standard terms, and their definitions whenever possible. One notable exception is the general use of "distributed simulation" to describe an integrated simulation and the supporting hardware and software enabling the integration. Lately, the modeling and simulation (M&S) community has increased their focus on representations of the natural environment resulting in an overloading of the word "environment." Therefore, throughout this document, the integrated simulation and its supporting hardware and software are referred to as the "distributed simulation." In addition, the commonly used acronym is defined specifically as "verification, validation, and acceptance/accreditation." Because accreditation is reserved for an official designation, which is not always required, this document focuses on providing verification and validation (V&V) evidence to support acceptance and use of the distributed simulation. Accreditation is addressed and maintained as a formal action introduced within the tailoring activities.