Adaptable and Predictable System Quality

ULS systems will be long running and must operate robustly in environments fraught with failures, overloads, and attacks. These systems must maintain robustness in the presence of adaptations that are not centrally controlled or authorized.

Managing traditional qualities such as security, performance, reliability, and usability is necessary but not sufficient to meet the challenges of ULS systems. This research area focuses on how to maintain quality in a ULS system in the face of continuous change, ongoing failures, and attacks. It also includes identifying, predicting, and controlling new indicators of system health (akin to the U. S. gross domestic product) that are needed because of the scale of ULS systems.

Relevant Glossary Terms

acceptability-oriented computing
annealing
complexity science
context-aware assistive computing
Dempster-Shafer theory
dissipative system
epistemic uncertainty
fuzzy set
machine learning
model checking
phase transition
quality attribute
resiliency
robust, robustness
self-organizing criticality
stochastic
system of systems
ubiquitous computing

aleatoric
belief logic
composition
context-aware computing
deterministic
econometrics
evidence theory
Internet storm
metastability
multi-valued logic
possibility theory
quasi-stability
recovery-oriented programming
security
statistical mechanics
system health
trust

Recommended Reading

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Candea, G.; Brown, A.; Fox, A.; & Patterson, D. "Recovery Oriented Computing: Building Multi-Tier Dependability." IEEE Computer 37, 11 (Nov. 2004).

Card, S.; Moran, T.; & Newell, A. The Psychology of Human- Computer Interaction. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1983.

Denning, D. "An Intrusion-Detection Model." IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 13, 2 (Feb. 1987): 222-232.

Elkind, J.; Card, S.; Hochberg, J.; & Huey, B. (eds.). Human Performance Models for Computer Aided Engineering. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, Inc., 1990.

Kieras, D. E. "Towards a practical GOMS model methodology for user interface design." The Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction. Helander, M. (ed.). Amsterdam: North-Holland Elsevier, 1988.

Kyamakya, K.; Jobmann, K.; & Meincke, M. "Security and Survivability of Distributed Systems: An Overview," IEEE MILCOM 2000, Los Angeles, CA, 2000.

Moore, A.; Ellison, R.; & Linger, R. Attack Modeling for Information Security and Survivability (CMU/SEI-2001-TN-001, ADA388771), Pittsburgh, PA: Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, 2001.

Patterson, D.; Brown, A.; Broadwell, P.; Candea, G.; Chen, M.; Cutler, J.; Enriquez, P.; Fox, A.; Kiciman, E.; Merzbacher, M.; Oppenheimer, D.; Sastry, N.; Tetzlaff, W.; Traupman, J.; & Treuhaft, N. Recovery-Oriented Computing (ROC): Motivation, Definition, Techniques, and Case Studies (UCB CSD-02-1175). Berkeley, CA: University of California, Berkeley, 2002.

Demsky, B. & Rinard, M. "Automatic Detection and Repair of Errors in Data Structures," 221–239. Companion to the 18th Annual ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Object Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications, Anaheim, CA, October 26–30, 2003.

Rinard, M.; Cadar, C.; & Nguyen, H. H. "Exploring the Acceptability Envelope." Companion to the 20th Annual ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications. San Diego, CA, October 16–20, 2005.

Schneider, F. (ed.). Trust in Cyberspace. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1998.

Turner, R. & Killian, L. Collective Behavior, 4th edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993.