Preface IWSSA 2011

Abstract

Diverse interacting information and software systems are needed by cities conducting large-scale events such as the Olympics, Worldcup Football, and the like. Some of these systems monitor and control utilities required for hosting the events including electricity, water supply, gas supply, etc., while others are used to monitor and control systems with wider geographic spread such as air traffic, sea and river traffic, and highway transportation systems. However, all these systems must be designed to operate in a coordinated and collaborative manner so that event organizers receive latest scenarios of the environment of the games and take appropriate actions which may include change of venue, postponement, or even cancellation of events. This is particularly relevant in view of threats to life and society in modern times. However, diverse information systems that monitor and control critical infrastructures do not collaborate by accident: collaboration, interoperability, reliability, and security need to be designed into such systems. Since architecture development is usually the first step in system or software design, designers need to address these non-functional requirements, which are sometimes conflicting or synergistic, in the architectures themselves. In particular, non-functional requirements and constraints take special relevance due to the new environments in which the systems themselves have to operate, i.e., some kind of combination of internet and pervasive systems. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.