India floats superior ship-management software as a route to regional relevance India has set itself a new challenge to develop locally-made software that manages shipping – of actual ships, not code - as a way to enhance its regional influence. The software in question is called “Vessel Traffic Services” (VTS) and “Vessel Traffic Management Systems” (VTMS). VTS is maritime traffic monitoring software …
There are many different companies that supply these systems in a highly competitive basis and compliant with the recommendations and guidelines of The International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities (IALA). Some of these are already cloud based and, yes, they use software containers, message queuing frameworks and web enabled Graphical User Interfaces.
The significant price associated with Vessel Traffic Services systems is often associated with the requirement of Aids to Navigation, Port, National and Regional maritime authorities for bespoke features and functionality coupled with the needs for all software to be available and maintained for periods exceeding 10 years.
This along with the developing 5G (IMT2020), IoT, VDES and Blockchain technologies now being used in the maritime environment creates a rapidly evolving environment that most governments will have a hard time keeping up to date with. Governments now seem to be competing directly with Industry.
Blockchain is another word for a merkel Tree. ZFS uses merkel trees, and therefore you could argue that it is a blockchain. It definitely doesn't need to be burned to the ground. ZFS is a good thing, but not that good. It is more reliable, which is good, less chance of data corruption, which is good, but otherwise, if you swap an NTFS / EXT 4 / UFS file store for a ZFS file store, you probably aren't going to notice any difference as an end user, or even as a developer of application software.
The thing that needs to be burned to the ground is Proof of Work.
Software is only part of the solution and it is very hard to get right. Case in point is radar data processing and target tracking. If you get that wrong, there will be false alerts all over the place and VTS operators will turn off the safety nets that the system provides.
And if you think you can forego the use of radars and create a system relying on AIS transponders only to determine vessel positions, think again. Transponder installations on board are not certified and GPS is not always 100% correct, so your tracks are at times significantly off course. The smaller vessels will not be equipped, but still cause hazardous situations.
And then there are standards compliance, the system installation with substations in remote locations with limited power supplies, communication networks, fault tolerant design for high availability, training, documentation and maintenance. Multiply their projected development cost and time to implement at least by a factor of seven to get near real numbers. This is not a run-of-the-mill office IT automation project.
There also comes the point of sovereign capability. Something that is fundamentally important to your countries economy but is controlled externally is a significant risk. What happens if your shipping infrastructure controlled by the software of a US company, but then the US imposes sanctions on you over a trade disagreement? In house may cost more up front, but control has value.
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