TC-ECBS newsletter March 2006 Issue Back to the Future agreed upon by the developers and the customers. TC-ECBS newsletter is produced as a focal by Jonah Z. Lavi It is imperative that this iterative process point for news concerning the (related) should be performed as rapidly as possible. activities of the IEEE Computer Society Re-visiting the 1990 Neveh Ilan Report - what is the strategic future of TC-ECBS? This process should include rapid prototyping Engineering of Computer-Based Systems techniques useful in the validation of the technical committee. If you have any items At the next TC meeting in Berlin, as part of concepts and the design. Once the wider for the next issue please contact ECBS’06, on the agenda is an item to re- consensus is reached it is possible to begin [email protected]. discuss the goals of the TC and how should the process of formally describing the design. we promote the basic ideas the TC was This is a slower, time consuming activity. created for. As such, one starting point for such a discussion is to look back at the Neveh TC Chair’s Column Ilan workshop report - which defined the As this issue of our newsletter is being scope of ECBS in the initiation meeting of the released at our annual international group in Neveh Ilan in 1990. conference I hope you won’t mind if I The report’s abstract reads: Modern welcome you all on behalf of the ECBS TC to computer-based systems are complex multi- Potsdam. I would also like to take the systems consisting of many connected opportunity to thank the local organizing individual subsystems; each one of them is committee for all they have achieved, our typically also a multicomputer system. The technical program committee for ensuring a subsystems in a multi-system can be either high quality program, our sponsors SAP and geographically distributed or locally connected HPI – your can read more about them and systems. Typical examples of computer- their research efforts in the Systems arena based systems are medical systems, process overleaf – and last and very much not least control systems, communications systems, our authors and participants without whom we weapon systems and large information wouldn’t have this excellent forum to discuss systems. The development of these complex our research and practice. systems requires the establishment of a new If you haven’t managed to make it to the engineering discipline in its own right, Figure 1 Computer-Based Systems Engineering - conference we hope to have the opportunity Figure 1 also shows an additional branch to welcome you back next year. CBSE. The definition of the discipline, its current. and future practice and the ways to labeled trial implementation. This option exists As our special interest in ECBS is systems establish and promote it were discussed in an because for some systems, the only way to that bring together software, computing international IEEE workshop held in Neve- reduce risk to an acceptable level is to hardware and communications – and people, Ilan, Israel in May 1990. The major conclusion partially implement it! please also keep in mind that if you are of the workshop was that CBSE should be The Full paper is available at: organizing any conference or workshop established as a new field in its own right. To http://www.infj.ulst.ac.uk/~tc- activities in the area in the year ahead there achieve this goal, the workshop participants ecbs/newsletter/2006-1/tc-ecbs-nevehllan.pdf are options available for IEEE ECBS to recommended that the IEEE Computer sponsor or co-sponsor your event, please feel Society shall set up a task force for the The original paper was published in the free to contact us to discuss. promotion of the field, the establishment of "Proceedings of the 1991 SEI Conference on CBSE institutes and the development. of the Software Engineering Education", Springer Byron Purves, chair ECBS-TC educational framework of CBSE. The paper Verlag Lecture Notes 1n Computer Science describes the major findings of the workshop No. 536, pp. 149-163, October 1991. It was that led to these conclusions and reprinted in the Proceedings of the IEEE recommendations. Computer Society ECBS 98 - International Symposium and Workshop, Jerusalem, Israel, Join TC ECBS The ECBS development process section Computer Society Press, March 1998, pp. reported that it was recognized that the CBS 333-340. If you have not already done so, you are development process must involve rapid invited to join online the IEEE Computer iteration early in the life-cycle in order to arrive Available with kind permission of IEEE Society Engineering of Computer-Based at a system architecture embodying the Computer Society press. Systems Technical Committee. required constraints, functionality and If you cannot make the TC meeting and have testability which can form the basis for comments on the TC’s strategic future or this Details can be found at the web site estimation and planning with an acceptable paper please contact us at http://www.computer.org/tab/ level of risk. Thus it was envisioned the [email protected] where you can sign-up to TC-ECBS and three development process as being a multi-pass others free process driven by the need to reduce risk. http://www.computer.org/TCsignup/index.htm The diagram in figure 1 encapsulates this Your TC-ECBS EXCOM Contacts view of the future development process. The If you have already signed up, manage your Byron Purves TC chair process starts with the initial concept which is membership at: [email protected] assumed to be quite vague. This is followed http://www.computer.org/services/teca by an iterative derivation process which is John Leaney, TC vice-chair initially concerned with gathering/creating [email protected] information and then capturing the information Tim O’Neill, TC recording secretary in a form which is adequate for [email protected] communication within the team responsible Did you miss the previous issue? for the derivation. The same process is Roy Sterritt, TC 2nd vice-chair Check out: applied to the creation of the requirement and [email protected] www.infj.ulst.ac.uk/~tc-ecbs/newsletter/last/ the design. In this way a large number of ideas are rejected, and the embryo design is modified until an adequate result is achieved IEEE Computer Society Engineering of Computer-Based Systems Technical Committee http://tab.computer.org/ecbs/ TC-ECBS newsletter SAP and HPI Special Section Students are registered at the University of SAP Potsdam and receive their Bachelor’s and/or Master’s degrees from that University as well. Founded in 1972, SAP is the recognized The cooperation of the non-profit "Hasso leader in providing collaborative business Sap and HPI Plattner Institute for Software Systems solutions for all types of industries and for are supporting Engineering" with the University of Potsdam is every major market. Serving more than this year’s regulated by a contract. 32,000 customers worldwide, SAP is the ECBS world's largest business software company and the world's third-largest independent International Conference and HPI Linking Business and Science software provider overall. They have a rich Workshops being held at HPI history of innovation and growth that has in Potsdam. This section Hasso Plattner’s commitment to the made us a true industry leader. Today, SAP briefly details some of their promotion of science in Germany is as employs more than 35,000 people in more research activities. unusual as it is exemplary. In 2005, the than 50 countries and has a turnover of over Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of the Sciences $7billion. Their professionals are dedicated to awarded the native Berliner its prestigious Hasso Plattner Institute for providing the highest level of customer Leibniz Medal. In October 2005 the popular service and support. Software Systems Engineering German science magazine P.M. awarded Hasso Plattner a prize for being the The Hasso Plattner Institute is unique in “Innovation promoter of the year”. Germany for two key reasons: It is the first SAP Invests £1.5M in Grid and only university institute financed entirely Mr. Plattner, who is 62 years old, has been an Research Centre in Belfast, by private funds and nowhere else can honorary doctor at the University of Potsdam Northern Ireland students receive a degree in “IT Systems since 2002 and an honorary professor there Engineering” as an alternative to conventional since 2004. In the summer of 1998, when he Invest Northern Ireland announced that SAP computer science programs. announced plans for the Hasso Plattner AG has chosen Belfast, Northern Ireland, as Institute for Software Systems Engineering, the location for its first U.K. research center. The Hasso Plattner Institute for Software the SAP Speaker of the Board noted that, for Supported by Invest Northern Ireland, SAP is Systems Engineering was created in 1998 in him, Brandenburg’s state capital: “... is the investing £1.5 million ($2.6 million, €2.2 the form of a public private partnership. The ideal location for future-oriented research and million) to set up a centre that will carry out institute is supported by the non-profit “Hasso education, and its stunning location in the leading-edge research in the emerging field of Plattner Foundation for Software Systems beautiful Havel River region makes the area Grid computing. Engineering”. The State of Brandenburg even more attractive.” contributed to the HPI by providing property at "Belfast offers a wealth of relevant expertise the Griebnitzsee in Potsdam-Babelsberg. The Not only does Plattner finance the HPI in its particularly through the University of Ulster construction of the institute’s buildings, entirety (with a total expenditure of over 200 and Queen's University, a leader in Grid including the University Institute for Computer million euro over a period of 20 years), but he computing research worldwide," said Jeremy Science, cost 36 million euro, for which Mr.