Simulation and Modeling for Software Acquisition ( SAMSA ) : Air Force Opportunities ( Extended Report ) March 1996

Executive Summary As indicated in the recent Air Force Scientific Advisory Board "New World Vistas" report [January 1996], "The future force will become effective and efficient through the use of information systems..." This particularly requires the Air Force to master the complexities of the rapidly evolving field of computer software, especially in the front end of the system life-cycle. Systems. He also identified Modeling and Simulation (M&S) technology as a strong candidate for such support. M&S technology has been extremely valuable in the acquisition of the hardware parts of Air Force systems, but appears underutilized for software acquisition. Mr. Mosemann commissioned USC-CSE to form a Blue Ribbon Panel to investigate the potential of M&S technology for software acquisition, and to develop a technology roadmap for creating and exploiting any promising technologies identified. The Panel identified three emerging technology areas which provide the basis for a set of new capabilities worth pursuing: q Software product architecture-based modeling and simulation; q Hybrid analytic and dynamic cost and schedule modeling of software projects; q An acquisition approach featuring the compatible co-evolution of system modeling, development, and instrumentation. The Panel also identified a hierarchical and incremental approach toward achieving and applying these capabilities. The initial and top-level steps involve developing capabilites for early use of M&S to assess the feasibility of proposed software solutions: in particular, the development of and experimentation with a Feasibility Analysis Model (FAM) for software systems. As a result of two workshops, Panel members identified several important FAM requirements including the need to: (i) prototype a software acquisition requirements engineering expert support system (herein called FAM-1) as a demonstration of the FAM concept; (ii) integrate domain-specific product-line architecture and resource and scheduling information into the FAM; and (iii)-term FAM when given a proposed software architecture for program solicitation, to apply FAM to analyze trade-offs and feasibility issues. Panel members also concluded that while useful near-term FAM capabilities were feasible, that full FAM capabilities were a long-range proposition. Thus, an incremental, hierarchical FAM approach is most appropriate. The hierarchical approach to FAM should initially be focused on addressing the feasibility of top-level or first-cut system requirements, mission objectives, and possible software system architectures in terms of their impact of system reliability, cost, useability, etc. Subsequently, lower-level FAM capabilities should enable more detailed analysis by software system resource and scheduling models/components and later architectural specification components. These elaborations are needed to more …