Architectural Invariants of Evolving Systems

9710575软件进化是一个重要的创造性过程，但是它也会带来严重的危险，特别是当软件被嵌入到关键企业中并且必须在其操作环境中进化时。因为即使是软件中的一个小变化也会导致系统行为的一个大变化，所以一个集成了不断发展的软件系统的企业很容易受到破坏性和潜在的灾难性影响，这些影响是由无意的错误或由受雇维护软件的程序员的恶意攻击引起的。该项目试图通过确保给定系统的一些架构原则作为其演变的不变量来维护，从而驯服这种危险。这种不变量，包括永久的“防火墙”、访问控制制度和确保可审计性的内部控制纪律，对于安全关键型系统，更一般地说，对于扮演某些敏感社会角色的系统，应该是无价的。这项工作将从先前创建的系统Darwin-E和Moses开始，集成两者的功能，扩展方法，并探索其在特定应用领域的使用。＊＊＊

9710575 Software evolution is an important creative process, but it carries serious perils, particularly when the software is embedded in a critical enterprise and must evolve within its operational context. Since even a small change in the software can cause a large change in the behavior of the system, an enterprise that incorporates an evolving software system is susceptible to destructive and potentially disastrous effects, caused by inadvertent errors or by malicious attacks by programmers employed to maintain the software. The project attempts to tame such perils by ensuring that some of the architectural principles of a given system be maintained as invariants of its evolution. Invariants of this kind, which include permanent "firewalls," access-control regimes, and internal control discipline that ensure auditability, should be invaluable for safety-critical systems and, more generally, for systems that play some sensitive societal roles. The work will start from previously created systems Darwin-E and Moses, integrating the capabilities of the two, scaling up the approach, and exploring its use in a particular application domain. ***