Lattix Blog | Software Architecture, DevOps, Systems Engineering

The Aerospace and Defense industry has a large problem with increasing cost and complexity in their projects. This is the result of Aerospace and Defense projects becoming larger and more sophisticated. To solve this problem, the complexity that has been introduced has to be identified, reduced, and managed. This will lower the overall cost and keep projects on schedule.  As an example, Tesla puts a strong emphasis on modularity (reduced complexity) across all their hardware. So during the recent chip shortage, they were able to quickly switch to chips that were available and continue to make and sell cars with minimal disruptions. One technology that can be used to reduce complexity (and increase modularity) is the Dependency Structure Matrix (DSM).

Software architecture erosion refers to the gap between the planned and actual architecture of a software system as observed in its implementation.¹

The weapons systems world is changing. The technology is improving rapidly, requirements for performance are increasing and weapons systems are often required to have 30-50 year service lifetimes. The DoD believes an open systems approach can help. An open system approach considers how a system will be supported throughout its lifecycle at the beginning of the project by using commercially available, widely used interface standards and a modular design approach to combine commercial products from multiple vendors to create a complete weapons system. For the DoD, the recommended method for implementing open systems is MOSA (Modular Open Systems Approach). 

"The log4j vulnerability is the most serious vulnerability I have seen in my decades-long career", Jen Easterly US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director 

"Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black"

- Henry Ford