Framework for managing system-of-systems ilities

Abstract

The design of ilities in System-of-Systems (SoS) architecture is a key means to manage changes and uncertainties over the long life cycle of an SoS. While there is broad consensus on the importance of ilities, there is generally a lack of agreement on what they mean and a lack of clarity on how they can be engineered. This article presents the DSTA Framework for Managing SoS Ilities, which coherently relates key ilities identified as important for SoS architectural design. Newly established in 2013 and updated in 2015 to guide Systems Architecting practitioners in DSTA, the framework also proposes how working definitions of robustness and resilience can be interpreted across key high-level and low-level ilities coherently, and introduces broad concepts of how they could be realized.