Center for high integrity software system assurance - initial goals and activities
Dolores R Wallace, Marvin V. Zelkowitz · 1995
Software is a major factor in corporate operations, consumer goods, military systems, environmental and energy services, communications, health care, and government op- erations.High integrity software is software that can and must be trusted to work dependably and is a growing necessity for the ability of United States industries and government to function.To enable the U.S. software industry to build high integrity software and to provide U.S. industries and government confidence in the software sys- tems on which they are dependent, NIST created the Center for High Integrity Software System Assurance (CHISSA) to establish criteria for software assurance for use by those who build or evaluate these systems.The measurements and associated methods will be embodied in a software development and assurance framework that will enable CHISSA to identify needed research in high integrity software assurance, to accelerate use of ef- fective technology into industry, and to develop standards and guidelines in cooperation with industry, other Federal agencies, and the research community.1 CHISSA was organized to enable industry to build high integrity software systems using tech- nology whose benefits have been defined and measured.(This goal of "measured" will be explained shortly.)To achieve this goal, CHISSA has these objectives:• collaborate with industry to determine high integrity software technology requirements,• identify high leverage research topics and potentially beneficial research results,• identify technology issues between software and other system components,• provide a mechanism for linking research, measurement, and transfer of software technology related to s imil ar efforts for other system components,• provide for measurement and assessment of technology in real application projects,• identify mechanisms for insertion of technology,• promote continuing training for engineers and scientists,• promote development of guidance and standards, and• provide results that will be made available to those organizations developing rules, policies, or contracting requirements to help them ensure that those rules, policies, and requirements are economically and technically feasible.1.1 CHISSA Interactions CHISSA will set its own agenda, based upon interactions with many related groups (Figure 1).Key groups include: • HISSA.The NIST High Integrity Software System Assurance (HISSA) program is currently involved in several high integrity software activities.This includes work performed as a result of contracts with other agencies, development of technical products in software engineering.