Ultra-large-scale systems

ABSTRACT

Scale changes everything. The trend in the design and development of software-intensive systems today is toward scale that increases in every measurable way. Lines of code, complexity, dependency, communication, bandwidth, memory, datasets, and many other measures for our systems continue to reach and exceed the limits of our ability to produce high-quality systems for all purposes.These systems will be unbounded, integrating internet-scale resources. They will serve diverse stakeholders with competing objectives and at the same time be constrained by policy, regulation, and the behaviors of their users. The lines between development, acquisition, and operations will blur: ULS systems will not die; they will be too large to be replaced and will be inextricably connected to the day-to-day mission. Rather, they will continue to evolve over time with behavior often more emergent than planned. Because complete specifications will not be achievable, sufficient assurance will have to do. ULS systems present "wicked problems," ones for which each attempt to create a solution changes the problem. Some of these characteristics appear in conventional systems, but in ULS systems they will dominate.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.9 Management

General Terms:
Algorithms, Design, Documentation, Economics, Experimentation, Human Factors, Languages, Legal Aspects, Management, Measurement, Performance, Reliability, Security, Standardization, Theory, Verification

Keywords:
design, methodology, systems, ultra-large-scale