Challenges of ULS systems

Fundamental gaps in our current understanding of software and software development at the scale of ULS systems present profound impediments to the technically and economically effective achievement of information superiority. These gaps are strategic, not tactical. They are unlikely to be addressed adequately by incremental research within established categories. Rather, we require a broad new conception of both the nature of such systems and new ideas for how to develop them. We will need to look at them differently, not just as systems or systems of systems, but as socio-technical ecosystems. We will face fundamental challenges in the design and evolution, orchestration and control, and monitoring and assessment of ULS systems. These challenges require breakthrough research.

Recommendations

The ULS System Research Agenda presented in Ultra-Large-Scale Systems: The Software Challenge of the Future provided the starting point for the path ahead. The study proposed a ULS systems research agenda for an interdisciplinary portfolio of research in at least the following areas:

• Human Interaction
• Computational Emergence
• Design
• Computational Engineering
• Adaptive System Infrastructure
• Adaptable and Predictable System Quality
• Policy, Acquisition, and Management

The proposed research was not intended to supplant current, important software research but rather to significantly expands its horizons. The envisioned outcome of the proposed research is a spectrum of technologies and methods for developing these systems of the future, with national-security, economic, and societal benefits that extend far beyond ULS systems themselves.
During the next five years, the SEI will

• Establish and participate in a research community focused on concepts and techniques for developing ULS systems
• Define what architecture specification, design, representation, evaluation, and evolution mean for systems of increasingly large scale
• Explore the relationship between a system’s architecture and stakeholders’ organizational structures and its impact on systems of increasingly large scale
• Investigate techniques from economics, biology, and sociology for solving the challenges of ultra-large scale
• Conduct workshops, organize working groups, write provocative essays, and establish a web presence to stimulate the research and practitioner communities to focus on problems endemic to ULS systems and establish a community of interest around such problems
• Conduct applied research on policies, acquisition strategies, and management practices for the orchestration and evolution of ULS systems
• Investigate assurance techniques appropriate for use on ULS systems