Autonomic computing architecture for SCADA cyber security

Cognitive computing relates to intelligent computing platforms that are based on the disciplines of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other innovative technologies. These technologies can be used to design systems that mimic the human brain to learn about their environment and can autonomously predict an impending anomalous situation. IBM first used the term ‘Autonomic Computing’ in 2001 to combat the looming complexity crisis (Ganek and Corbi, 2003). The concept has been inspired by the human biological autonomic system. An autonomic system is self-healing, self-regulating, self-optimising and self-protecting (Ganek and Corbi, 2003). Therefore, the system should be able to protect itself against both malicious attacks and unintended mistakes by the operator

Towards a Comprehensive Blockchain Architecture Continuum.

The increasingly need for companies to keep a high level of synchronization globally and the advent of new technologies are pushing more and more to move decision-making and operational power from the centre of organizations to their edges. The blockchain could be the key technology to make this change possible. However, there is no bridge yet capable of shortening the still long distance between this new technological phenomenon and today\u27s business realities. Our work aims precisely at this goal; we propose a framework of blockchain models to help practitioners understanding and potentially implement new solutions based on this technological paradigm. In particular, we have developed an ontology that helps to identify and clarify in detail what are the concepts and structures revolving around this technology, and built a continuum of blockchain architectural solutions, ranging from a classic centralized IT architecture to one completely distributed within a public ecosystem

Modelling and enterprises-the past, the present and the future.

Industry has been practicing model-driven development in various flavours. In general it can be said that modelling and use of models have delivered on the promises of platform independence, enhanced productivity, and delivery certainty as regards development of software-intensive systems. Globalization market forces, increased regulatory compliance, ever-increasing penetration of internet, and rapid advance of technology are some of the key drivers leading to increased business dynamics. Increased number of factors impacting the decision and interdependency amongst the key drivers is leading to increased complexity in making business decisions. Also, enterprise software systems need to commensurately change to quickly support the business decisions. The paper presents synthesis of our experience over a decade and half in developing model-driven development technology and using it to deliver several business-critical software systems worldwide

Scenario-based modifiability evaluation of service-based systems : tool support for lightweight scenario templates

In modern software development, modifiability has arguably become one of the most important software quality attributes. There has been extensive research on the topic of the evaluation of a system's or architecture's ability to be modified. Scenario-based methods such as ALMA or SAAM have been around for a long time, and have proven to be effective ways to evaluate software. However, these methods are usually quite expensive in terms of time and require a big part of a project's stakeholders to align. One thing there has been a notable lack of is the modifiability evaluation specifically of systems using a service-based architecture. Properties of this architectural style can be useful to make more efficient assessments of a software's modifiability. This work seeks to propose a method to evaluate modifiability of service-based systems using a scenario-based analysis approach. Special emphasis is placed on this method being lightweight, i.e. less time-consuming and more flexible than similar methods. To achieve this, existing works on the topics of scenario-based software evaluation and the evolution of service-based systems were studied. Based on the acquired knowledge, a model of software change and an approach to analyze a system’s modifiability utilizing this model was designed. A tool was created to support our proposed method. Testing and applying the tool leads to iterative adjustments to the method. To demonstrate the insights that can be won using this method as well as how it is used, we perform an example application of it. The result of this work is a method that exchanges some of the reliability and accuracy of other scenario-based methods for flexibility and brevity. While the method achieves its goal of being lightweight, real-world testing and validation may lead to improvements to it