The Open Group releases Dependability Through Assuredness standard

SAN FRANCISCO, USA & TOKYO, JAPAN: The Open Group announced the publication of the Dependability through Assuredness Standard (O-DA) published by The Open Group Real-Time & Embedded Systems Forum. O-DA will benefit organizations relying on complex systems to avoid or mitigate the impact of failure of those systems.

At the heart of this new standard is the concept of modeling dependencies, building assurance cases, achieving agreement on accountability in the event of actual or potential failure and doing so within the architecture process. Complex systems, especially where the boundaries of operation or ownership are unclear are often subject to change: objectives change, new demands are made, regulations change, business partners are added, etc.

So where the failure of the system can have a significant impact on lives, income or reputation, it is critical that a process is in place to identify these changes and to update the architecture, the assurance cases and the agreements on accountability. It is also critical that a process is in place to detect anomalies or failures, to understand the causes and to prevent them from impacting the system in the future.

O-DA includes both a Change Accommodation Cycle and a Failure Response Cycle that together provide a framework for these critical processes.

"O-DA brings together and builds on so many of the concepts underlying The Open Group vision of Boundaryless Information Flow," said Allen Brown, CEO of The Open Group. "The members of The Open Group Security Forum who brought us O-DM (Open Dependency Modeling) and the Risk Taxonomy and the members of The Open Group Architecture Forum (TOGAF) and the Open Group ArchiMate Forum have all supported The Open Group Real-time and Embedded Systems Forum to complete this important new standard."