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Innovations in Software Engineering for Defense Systems (2003)

Chapter: Appendix B: Glossary and Acronym List

« Previous: Appendix A: Workshop Agenda and Speakers
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Glossary and Acronym List." National Research Council. 2003. Innovations in Software Engineering for Defense Systems. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10809.
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Page 66
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Glossary and Acronym List." National Research Council. 2003. Innovations in Software Engineering for Defense Systems. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10809.
×
Page 67
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Glossary and Acronym List." National Research Council. 2003. Innovations in Software Engineering for Defense Systems. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10809.
×
Page 68
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Glossary and Acronym List." National Research Council. 2003. Innovations in Software Engineering for Defense Systems. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10809.
×
Page 69

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APPENDIX B Glossary and Acronym List INTEROPERABILITY TERMS Application server: a collection of middleware services that have been packaged together for the development, management, and maintenance of end-user applications. Application servers can be for general purpose applications (e.g., IBM's WebSphere and Microsoft's .NET Framework) or for special purpose applications (e.g., Nokia's Application Server for Mobile Applications and Microsoft's E- Commerce Platform for e-commerce applications). CORBA (common object request broker architecture): a middleware service that allows software application "objects" to interoperate over networks. For example a CORBA object representing inventory can interact with remotely located customer objects by using CORBA services. Distributed database: a network of database servers that appear to users as a single system. Distributed databases address the problem of increasing demands for storage, sorting, and queuing as the quantity of information in a database becomes larger; for example a customer database can be distributed to the site where the customer resides in order to minimize network traffic. 66

GLOSSARY AND ACRONYM LIST 67 DOM (document object module): a programming interface for XML/ HTML documents that defines the structure of XML/HTML documents so that they can be accessed and manipulated by programs. For example, DOM allows a program (software agent) to read and understand the HTML/XML tags and act accordingly (e.g., search for customer names in an XML document containing customer names, addresses, etch. EAT (enterprise application integration platforms): platforms that permit existing applications to interact with each other in order to share business processes and data sources. Commercially available EAI platforms from suppliers (e.g., IBM, Tibco, Vitria) provide a "messaging bus" that can be used by diverse applications to communicate with each other. EDI (electronic data interchange): an old (circa 1972) system for the exchange of information such as purchase orders, cataloguess, and invoices between organizations in a structured format. For many years, EDI has been used for business-to-business trade over privately owned corporate networks, but it is now competing against XML documents that are exchanged over the Internet and serve the same purpose. E]B (Enterprise JavaBeans): This software, designed by Sun Microsystems, facilitates the development of middleware applications by providing support for services such as transactions, security, and database connectivity. ElBs, part of the WEE specification (see below), use a "business component" approach where each application acts as a self- contained component that can be accessed and activated over the network. EMS (JAVA message service): a flexible means for exchanging information between several clients and applications. It allows Java applications to exchange messages with each other asynchronously. J2EE (JAVA 2 platform enterprise edition): a very comprehensive specification, defined by Sun for enterprise applications, for the infrastructure to support Web service and to enable development of secure and interoperable business applications. WEE has several components, including IMS and ElBs.

68 APPENDIX B Legacy wrapper: a software system that accepts requests from a "new" client (e.g., Web, CORBA) and adapts it for older (non-Web, non-CORBA) servers. These wrappers give legacy systems (e.g., an inventory system developed in the 1980s) newer "appearances" so that they can work with more recently developed applications. For this reason, these wrappers are also known as "face lifters." Message broker: a software system that facilitates the integration of business applications, networks, and middleware processes through use of a hub and spoke-type architecture. Most EAI platforms defined above use message brokers at their core. Message brokers are similar to object request brokers (the core of CORBA) but are not restricted to exchanging object messages. MOM (message-oriented middleware): a specific class of middleware that supports the exchange of general-purpose messages in a distributed application environment, i.e., it facilitates communication between distributed applications by using asynchronous processing. MOM is at the core of most message brokers. ODBC/JDBC (open database connectivity/Java database connectivity): ODBC is an application programming interface for accessing relational databases, mainly used with C-based applications; JDBC is an application programming interface for accessing any tabular data source from Java. PKI (public key infrastructure): the combination of software, encryption technologies, digital certificates, and other services that enables businesses to protect the security and integrity of their communications and transactions on the Internet. SNA (systems network architecture): an old (circa 1972) proprietary network standard designed by IBM to handle communications and interactions between individual users on a networked system. Still in use in some industry segments, SNA is a proprietary network specification, as compared to the Internet, which is based on TCP/IP (an open network specification).

GLOSSARY AND ACRONYM LIST 69 SOAP (simple object access protocol): a simple XML-based protocol designed to exchange information on the Web in order to provide Web services based on a shared and open Web infrastructure. SSL (secure sockets layer): a method for protecting Web communications by providing data encryption, server authentication, and message . . Integrity. TP-Heavy an~lTP-Lite (transaction processing): two methods for database transactions: TP-Lite is limited to simple transactions with stored procedures, whereas TP-Heavy can monitor the execution of functions and permits interaction with other transactional units in a larger transaction. WAP (wireless application protocol): an application environment and communication protocols for wireless devices to provide independent access to the Internet. FAULT-TOLERANT SOFTWARE TERMS Data diversity: a method for developing alternative software outputs from a single version of code through use of multiple, slightly perturbed versions of the input data; an example is e-copy programming. Design diversity (parallel coding): for checking the accuracy of code, the use of sequentially or simultaneously available alternative versions of software written to the same specifications; examples include e-version programming and recovery block. Environmental diversity (proactive fault management): a generalization of restarting a software system, and using instead a new or modified operating environment to enable the running software to avoid failure.

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Recent rough estimates are that the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) spends at least $38 billion a year on the research, development, testing, and evaluation of new defense systems; approximately 40 percent of that cost-at least $16 billion-is spent on software development and testing. There is widespread understanding within DoD that the effectiveness of software-intensive defense systems is often hampered by low-quality software as well as increased costs and late delivery of software components. Given the costs involved, even relatively incremental improvements to the software development process for defense systems could represent a large savings in funds. And given the importance of producing defense software that will carry out its intended function, relatively small improvements to the quality of defense software systems would be extremely important to identify. DoD software engineers and test and evaluation officials may not be fully aware of a range of available techniques, because of both the recent development of these techniques and their origination from an orientation somewhat removed from software engineering, i.e., from a statistical perspective. The panel's charge therefore was to convene a workshop to identify statistical software engineering techniques that could have applicability to DoD systems in development.

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