Robust Complex Systems

Software systems today are becoming increasingly complex because of the wide range of responsibilities they handle and the wide range of services they provide. The use of complex, high-speed, network-centric software-intensive systems is increasing within weapons and C4ISR systems and other automated information processing systems. The explosion of information and advances in hardware and weapons technology have resulted in increased demands on software systems to deliver more and more functionality. Software architects and managers are therefore challenged on a day-to-day basis to deliver more, make it fast, keep it robust, keep it reliable and keep it secure. These challenges have shifted more responsibility to the software processes and infrastructure. The software in these systems carries high level of responsibility in terms of correctness of decisions taken, minimal response time to external stimuli, maximized ability to configure and control in the field. Current toolsets are able to handle limited complexity, as they focus on individual elements and pay little attention to the integration and run-time operation of the elements within the larger system-of-systems. An advanced toolkit that is capable of combining a wide variety of features into one umbrella, supporting architecture description language and generation of application and test suites is required to effectively build future software systems. This proposal describes an effective toolkit for developing software-intensive systems in a reliable and cost-effective manner.