Modelling and Simulation as a Service – an Emergent Concept that Supports the Military Education and Training Process Continuity

In the last years, the NATO Modelling and Simulation Group (NMSG) has started to develop and put into practice an emergent concept named “Modelling and Simulation as a Service” (MSaaS) with the purpose to provide a permanent service and cloud-based modelling and simulation (M&S) ecosystem to be used by NATO and partner nations. The new M&S ecosystem will help to project and expand the ways of using M&S capabilities for achieving interoperability between participating simulation systems and ensuring credibility of results. This paper presents, on one hand, the development phases of MSaaS, the benefits and steps that have to be done in the future for its implementation at NATO level, and on the other hand, it makes an extrapolation between business continuity concept and MSaaS concept in terms of ensuring the military education and training process continuity when a crisis situation occurs.