Open Systems Architectures: When & Where to Be Closed

• “There are people out there who are very happy doing things the way they have always done it. That can sometimes be contractors. It can sometimes be government personnel. Nothing in this podcast should be construed as an excuse not to use openness. We want to use openness where it makes sense, where it is appropriate, and where other quality requirements, other issues don’t take precedence.”

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  SEI Blog Post | Open Systems Architectures: When & Where To Be Closed

• Abstract

  Due to advances in hardware and software technologies, Department of Defense (DoD) systems today are highly capable and complex. However, they also face increasing scale, computation, and security challenges. Compounding these challenges, DoD systems were historically designed using stove-piped architectures that lock the government into a small number of system integrators, each devising proprietary point solutions that are expensive to develop and sustain over the lifecycle. Although these stove-piped solutions have been problematic (and unsustainable) for years, the budget cuts occurring under sequestration are motivating the DoD to reinvigorate its focus on identifying alternative means to drive down costs, create more affordable acquisition choices, and improve acquisition program performance. A promising approach to meet these goals is open systems architecture (OSA). In this podcast, Don Firesmith discusses how acquisition professionals and system integrators can apply OSA practices to effectively decompose large monolithic business and technical architectures into manageable and modular solutions that can integrate innovation more rapidly and lower total ownership costs.
  
  

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About the Speaker

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  Donald Firesmith, a senior engineer at the SEI, supports government program offices in the acquisition of software-reliant systems, primarily by providing practical guidance with regard to requirements engineering, system/software architectures, process, and testing. The author of several books and numerous journal articles and conference presentations, Firesmith also performs research in such topics as testing pitfalls and a taxonomy of testing types.