Rapid Lifecycle Development in an Agile Context

This blog post at the SEI blog describes research on providing software and systems architects with a decision-making framework for reducing integration risk with Agile methods, thereby reducing the time and resources needed for related work.

The research explores the implications of decisions made over the course of the software and systems lifecycle. It examines when these decisions are made and the time when the implications surface to validate the following hypotheses:

1. The fundamental early decisions made during the pre-engineering and manufacturing development (pre-EMD) phase have an impact throughout the lifecycle.
2. The implications of the early decisions often surface in the final stages of the lifecycle, downstream from development.

Read the full post here.

A New Approach for Handheld Devices in Tactical Networks

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is increasingly interested in having soldiers carry handheld computing devices to support their mission needs in tactical networks. Not surprisingly, however, conventional handheld computing devices (such as iPhone or Android smartphones) for commercial networks differ in significant ways from handheld devices for tactical networks. For example, conventional devices and the software that runs on them do not provide the capabilities and security needed by military devices, nor are they configured to work over DoD tactical networks with severe bandwidth limitations and stringent transmission security requirements.

This post at the new SEI blog describes exploratory research that the SEI is conducting to (1) create software that allows soldiers to access information on a handheld device and (2) program the software to tailor the information for a given mission or situation.

SEI architecture research planned for 2011

Each year, the SEI conducts a program of research in architecture-centric engineering. These are the topics that we plan to investigate in 2011:

1. Quality Attribute Foundations and Analysis

• Resource allocation for massively parallel multicore platforms–developing task models, resource abstractions, and scheduling strategies for predicting real-time performance
• Static analysis for multicore—investigating use of scalable static analysis to ensure that concurrency-related invariants are preserved as systems move to multicore platforms.
• System reliability framework—developing new metrics and approaches for using architecture knowledge to assure the safe and reliable operation of software-reliant systems
• Architecture-based testing—investigating techniques for using architecture knowledge to inform and reduce system testing.

Speaker Abstracts Now Being Accepted for SATURN 2011

Save the date! The SEI Architecture Technology User Network (SATURN) 2011 conference is headed west to San Mateo County, California May 16-20, 2011.

The SATURN team at the Software Engineering Institute is pleased to announce the opening of the call for submissions for the SATURN 2011 Conference. We are looking for individuals who have real-world examples, lessons learned, innovative ideas, or an exciting perspective on software architecture to share with fellow software professionals.

The theme for the SATURN 2011 conference is “Architecting the Future” with a focus on architecture methods, techniques, and practices that will shape the future of architecture and enable architecture to shape our future. We’re calling this “7 Things You Need to Know about the Next 7 Years in Architecture.”

We invite those interested in speaking at SATURN 2011 to submit abstracts for presentations or half-day tutorial sessions. As part of SATURN’s collaboration with IEEE Software magazine, selected conference papers will be featured in IEEE Software.

Abstracts will be accepted until midnight on November 30, 2010.

For more information on topics, format, terms and conditions, and submission details, visit the SATURN 2011 website at http://www.sei.cmu.edu/saturn/2011/call.cfm.

We look forward to receiving your submission and we hope to see you in California!

About the SATURN Conference
The annual SEI Architecture Technology User Network (SATURN) Conference brings together software professionals from around the world to exchange best practices in developing, acquiring, and maintaining software and systems architecture.

New Edition of Documenting Software Architectures: Views and Beyond

Documenting Software Architectures: Views and Beyond, Second Edition, is now available at the Addison-Wesley website InformIT, where lead author Paul Clements discusses the new edition in an interview.

Meeting the Range of SOA Needs

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) has become an increasingly popular mechanism for achieving interoperability among systems. To help organizations adopt SOA, the SEI developed SMART—the SOA Migration, Adoption, and Reuse Technique—in 2005. To learn more about how this technique has evolved through practical application, read this just-published article on the SEI website or listen to a podcast by the SEI’s Grace Lewis.

SATURN 2010 TECHdotMN Session Notes, SOA/Cloud Computing Parallel Sessions, Thursday, May 20

SATURN 2010 / TECHdotMN field notes
by Mike Bollinger 5/20/10

Cloud Computing Architecture by Dr. Gerald Kaefer

As a product manager working in sectors of health care and energy optimization inside Siemens, Gerald discusses the opportunities and challenges of increasing awareness internally for Cloud Computing – what’s changing and how to respond to that.

Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service-provider interaction (Source: NIST Cloud Computing Project, http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/SNS/cloud-computing/cloud-def-v14.doc).

SATURN 2010 TECHdotMN Session Notes, Wednesday, May 19

SATURN 2010 / TECHdotMN field notes
by Jeff Pesek 5/19/10

Architecturally Focused Techniques for Managing System Evolution by William Koscho

Based on the premise that business strategy, process and units will inevitably change – the architect’s objectives are to: (a) understand/accept potential changes in the environment, (b) manage relationships between the environment and the architecture and (c) minimize the risk of the implementing change.

“Is this strategic change we want to invest in or is it arbitrary and therefore cost-sensitive?” Mr. Koscho asks in describing the internal thought process.

SATURN 2010 Session: Software Architecting in Agile Software Development

Ger Schoeber, Sioux Embedded Systems: Architecting & Agile: Friends or Enemies

Described a system architecting process, an incremental multi-disciplinary development approach. Starts with requirements derived from business goals for customers. Develops embedded software on a project basis. “We get paid only if our customers meet their goals.” Known functional requirements are main drivers.

Development process follows Scott Ambler’s approach. Start with a first iteration or sprint–focusing on requirements and architecture as foundation for activity, then build software on top of that. Embedded systems must take into account the environment in which the software must operate. Short sprints for software, less frequent iterations for electronics, and less frequent for mechanics. Then find integration points among software, electronics, and mechanics as early and frequently as possible.

SEI Webinar May 13: Lisa Brownsword and Carol Woody, Engineering Improvement in Software Assurance: A Landscape Framework

Thursday, May 13, 2010
Time: 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM EDT
Cost: Free

Abstract

Many organizations are associated with producing, using, or funding technologies, practices, and policies purported to address assurance—a justified level of confidence that systems (and systems of systems) will function as intended within their operational environments. Understanding the value these solutions provide to assurance is often indirect and unclear. Where are the critical gaps in available technologies and practices? Where should resources be invested to gain the most benefit? To accelerate the formation and adoption of solutions, a more systematic approach is needed to model the assurance landscape.