A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/982835
and the first evaluation of this functionality as it incorporates into traditional STARS software. STARS Software Planning Board ( SPB) The march toward a new operating system continues and the SPB is refining software build content to meet the end - of - life for Solaris while delivering needed fixes and enhancements to the field. The STARS program has employed the Solaris Operating Syst em since its inception and has been through two significant upgrades in its lifetime: Introduced on Solaris 2.5.1 Transitioned to Solaris 8 Transitioned to Solaris 10 The STARS program needs to continually refresh and upgrade the system and therefore the FAA has previously requested Raytheon perform a trade study to investigate two paths to address the End - Of - Service d ate of Solaris 10 of Jan 2021. The first was to upgrade the STARS System from Solaris 10 to Solaris 11, and the second was to trans ition fro m Solaris to Linux. Upon completing initial investigations, a decision was made by the FAA to go to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) because of the following reasons: Diminishing support for Solaris from other ven dors and suppliers of equipment; Solaris 11 is very different from Solaris 10 and therefore represents significant upgrade effort. Oracle Corporation are not committed to Solaris (discontinued Open Solaris in 2010) and now offer their own version of Linux, based on Red Hat Linux, suggesting that t he future of Solaris is uncertain. The FAA and Department of Transportation are standardizing on RHEL. NATCA is collaborating with the STARS software stakeholders to meet new OS objectives while working to deliver much needed software fixes to the fiel d as soon as possible. Program Trouble Report Working Group (PTRWG) NATCA SMES from M98, D10 and PHL will attend the May meeting. Because the new STARS OS will likely bring a temporary cessation to software deployment in 2021, the PTRWG May agenda will be focused on high priority software needs before OS transition. NATCA is working with PTRWG stakeholders to properly rank these reports to ensure important issues are acted upon. Mr. Ness has submitted new software proposals to the working group that will i mprove Final Monitor Aid (FMA), provide controllers with enhanced aural alerts and give Charlotte tower/TRACON heightened monitoring of parallel departures. TAMR NATCA Training submitted by Ross Costa (RSW) This month, Ross Costa travelled to Greenville - S partanburg, S . C ., Florence, S . C . and Wilmington, N . C ., t o deliver a training briefing. In addition to scheduling class dates for Cadre and scenario development, we discussed transition plans and lessons learned. Mr. Costa also travelled to Washington, D . C . to have a full deployment team meeting. Discussion topics that were including but not limited to, lessons learned, improvements moving forward and a detailed overview of the TAMR waterfall. In addition, initial discussions were held with the training te am to identify training needs for