A Systematic Framework for the Assessment of Operating Systems

摘要

Operating systems (OS) are common to almost all computing platforms including those used in safety related systems (SRS). OS are commercial components and, as with other "off the shelf components, there can be significant difficulties in assessing their dependability cost-effectively. An OS provides a broad range of support services to application software, hence it cannot easily be assessed independently of the services of the application it supports. Also many of the functions of the OS are at a low level, but are so influential to the operation of the system that they become an intrinsic aspect of deployment risk for those systems. Thus we require a specialised approach to assessing dependability of OS. This paper considers the use of an assessment framework for OS from the air traffic control domain. Our findings are based on a case study that applied the assessment framework to a simple OS: the L4 micro-kernel. The paper considers the issues in, and potential benefits of, using such a general framework.