Proceedings of the 4th international ACM Sigsoft symposium on Architecting critical systems

Abstract

It is my great pleasure to welcome you to the 4th International ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on Architecting Critical Systems (ISARCS 2013). ISARCS is a symposium dedicated to architectural design for dependable, safe and secure systems. It provides an exclusive forum for exchanging views on the theory and practice of architecting critical systems. A critical system is characterized by the perceived severity of consequences that system failures may cause. In that respect, in addition to appropriate development methods, techniques and tools, a critical system also requires the provision of assurances that it is able to fulfill its specified service. As software systems continue to pervade every facet of our daily lives, our dependence on their safety, security, availability, and reliability grows. It has become increasingly clear that the architecture of a critical software system plays a crucial role in fulfilling its dependability requirements. This has called for effective methods, techniques, and tools that take architectural concerns into consideration during the design, construction, testing, maintenance, and upgrade of such systems. The aim of ISARCS is to bring together different communities in order to create a forum in which the different expertise collaborate in providing a comprehensive view on how to construct critical systems from the architectural perspective. This year, ISARCS is again part of the federated event CompArch, together with "QoSA 2013: 9th International ACM SIGSOFT Conference on the Quality of Software Architectures," "CBSE 2013: 16th International ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on Component-Based Software Engineering," and "WCOP 2013: 18th International Doctoral Symposium on Components and Architecture". ISARCS call for papers attracted 12 submissions that were reviewed thoroughly by an international program committee. Following an online discussion phase, 5 long and 2 short papers were accepted for inclusion in the proceedings and presentation at the conference. The federated event also includes 3 keynotes that are highly relevant to the challenges of architecting critical systems.