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O. Shabelnyk, P. Frangoudis, S. Dustdar, C. Tsigkanos:
"Updating Service-Based Software Systems in Air-Gapped Environments";
Talk: 15th European Conference on Software Architecture (ECSA 2021) - Online Conference, Växjö, Sweden; 2021-09-13 - 2021-09-17; in: "Software Architecture, 15th European Conference, ECSA 2021, Proceedings", S. Biffl, E. Navarro, W. Löwe, M. Sirjani, R. Mirandola, D. Weyns (ed.); Springer, Cham, LNCS 12857 (2021), ISBN: 978-3-030-86043-1; 147 - 163.

Contemporary component-based systems often manifest themselves as service-based architectures, where a central activity is management of their software updates. However, stringent security constraints in mission-critical settings often impose compulsory network isolation among systems, also known as air-gap; a prevalent choice in different sectors including private, public or governmental organizations. This raises several issues involving updates, stemming from the fact that controlling the update procedure of a distributed service-based system centrally and remotely is precluded by network isolation policies. A dedicated software architecture is thus required, where key themes are dependability of the update process, interoperability with respect to the software supported and auditability regarding update actions previously performed. We adopt an architectural viewpoint and present a technical framework for updating service-based systems in air-gapped environments. We describe the particularities of the domain characterized by network isolation and provide suitable notations for service versions, whereupon satisfiability is leveraged for dependency resolution; those are situated within an overall architectural design. Finally, we evaluate the proposed framework over a realistic case study of an international organization, and assess the performance of the dependency resolution procedures for practical problem sizes.

Software updates · Air-gapped environments · Service-based architectures

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86044-8_10

Project Head Christos Tsigkanos:
EDENSPACE