Building Robust Systems with Fallible Construction

摘要

Today's NATO military commanders depend on large, complex software systems that must be more predictable and trustworthy than traditional development methods can deliver for the available time and cost investments. This requirement is not quite compatible with the traditional software development that is prevalent in today's military acquisition methods. Today's systems are typically integrated from components that may themselves contain flaws, originating in specification, design or implementation errors, or in miscommunication between different teams involved in the development. 'System of Systems', where components are systems in and of themselves, are a significant factor. More seriously, the integration process itself may be flawed. This situation can arise in the NATO context, for instance, when coalitions are formed quickly, and complex systems must be integrated from subsystems supplied by different nations. The workshop was organized to review past and present understanding of the challenge, as well as examining relevant approaches to address them. Rather than an exchange of pre-prepared material, the workshop was intended as a working meeting with a goal of producing a deliverable that is a summary of the state of the art. The workshop topic is related to Software Fault Tolerance, a topic that has been studied at least since 1970. Worldwide much has been learned about how to address those problems, as they were understood at the time. However changes in perspective as to what constitute the challenges, and changes in available and commonplace technology, have led to a need to go beyond conclusions reached in the past. The proceedings include position statements from the participants, slides from the presentations made by the participants, and the one complete paper that was submitted. Minutes of the discussions provide insight into how the deliverable, the final report of task group IST-047/RTG-019, was shaped.