Critical information infrastructures: Should models represent structures or functions?

Abstract

The common approaches to modeling and analyzing complex socio-technical systems, of which Critical Information Infrastructures is one example, assumes that they can be completely specified. The methods emphasize how systems are composed or structured and how component failures propagate. Since socio-technical systems always are underspecified, they cannot be analyzed in the same way. The alternative is to focus on their functions, and how the variability of functions can combine to create non-linear effects. An example of that is the Functional Resonance Analysis method (FRAM). © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.