What is ISO/IEC/IEEE 21839- System of systems (SoS) considerations in life cycle stages of a system about?

ISO/IEC/IEEE 21839 provides a set of critical system of systems (SoS) considerations to be addressed at key points in the life cycle of the system of interest (SoI).

ISO/IEC/IEEE 21839 refers to considerations that apply to an SoI that is a constituent system that interacts in an SoS.

The considerations and life cycle model align with those which are already defined in ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288 and ISO/IEC/IEEE 24748-1. Selected subsets of these considerations can be applied throughout the life of systems through the involvement of stakeholders.

Note 1- ISO/IEC/IEEE 21839 concerns those systems that are man-made and are configured with one or more of the following: hardware, software, humans, procedures and facilities.

Note 2- ISO/IEC/IEEE 21839 does not detail the approach to addressing system of systems considerations in terms of methods or procedures.

Note-3- ISO/IEC/IEEE 21839 does not detail the described documentation in terms of name, format, explicit content and recording media of documentation.

Who is ISO/IEC/IEEE 21839- System of systems (SoS) considerations in life cycle stages of a system for?

ISO/IEC/IEEE 21839- System of systems (SoS) considerations in life cycle stages of a system is useful for:

Information technology industry
Software engineers
Business organisations

Why should you use ISO/IEC/IEEE 21839- System of systems (SoS) considerations in life cycle stages of a system?

Maier (1998) postulated five key characteristics (not criteria) of SoS: operational independence of component systems, managerial independence of component systems, geographical distribution, emergent behaviour and evolutionary development processes. Maier identified operational independence and managerial independence as the two principal distinguishing characteristics for applying the term “systems-of-systems”. A system that does not exhibit these two characteristics is not considered a system-of-systems regardless of the complexity or geographic distribution of its components.

An essential characteristic is that each constituent system within the SoS is operationally independent. That is, each constituent system can operate independently to fulfil some number of purposes on its own.

The focus of ISO/IEC/IEEE 21839 is a constituent system as the SoI. The considerations provided in ISO/IEC/IEEE 21839 enables you to understand what is necessary to account for the life cycle of the constituent system or SoI to enable it to interact in the anticipated SoS configurations.

The ultimate goal of ISO/IEC/IEEE 21839 is to achieve customer satisfaction, so that when delivered, the SoI will operate effectively in the operational or business environment which is typically characterized as one or more systems of systems.

ISO/IEC/IEEE 21839 addresses SoS considerations that apply to systems at each stage of their respective life cycles.

BS ISO/IEC/IEEE 21839:2019

Systems and software engineering. System of systems (SoS) considerations in life cycle stages of a system

Current, Under Review

Published:

31 Jul 2019