Large-scale Complex IT Systems
Encyclopedia
The UK Large-Scale Complex IT Systems (LSCITS) Initiative is a research and graduate education program focusing on the problems of developing large-scale, complex IT systems (also referred to as Ultra-large-scale systems
or ULSS). The initiative is funded by the EPSRC, with more than ten million pounds
of funding awarded between 2006 and 2013.
and the British Computer Society
. This report examined the causes of failure of a number of large software projects and made several recommendations for research to address some of these problems.
A second report, authored by Seth Bullock & Dave Cliff and also published in 2004, was commissioned by the UK Government's Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Office of Science and Technology and carried the title Complexity and Emergent Behaviour in ICT Systems The main conclusions of this report were that the primary challenges needing to be addressed in the UK are institutional and cultural obstacles to appropriate interdisciplinary research and that there was an urgent need to address omissions in UK undergraduate computer science education.
In October 2005, Dave Cliff was appointed Director of the LSCITS initiative by the EPSRC and was asked to consult extensively with industry on their problems in this area and, on the basis of this consultation, to form a consortium to tackle these problems. The results of the consultation were that the key concerns of industry were socio-technical issues arising from the interactions between organizations, people and systems and in high-integrity systems engineering. On the basis of this, a consortium was formed with two partners (York, Oxford) focusing on formal methods and high-integrity systems and two partners (Leeds, St Andrews) focusing on socio-technical systems. Subsequently, a further project focusing on cloud computing was approved with Bristol, St Andrews and Aston Universities as partners.
The 5-year research project started in October 2007 with the associated EngD program starting in October 2009.
" to improve existing technical approaches to complex systems engineering and to develop new socio-technical approaches that help us understand the complex interactions between organisations, processes and systems" .
The LSCITS stack (Figure 1) shows the research areas that are particularly relevant to LSCITS.
The focus of the work of the project was initially in the following areas:
Work on mathematical foundations was not included as these were funded in a separate research programme by the EPSRC with complexity science research centres at the University of Bristol
and the University of Warwick
. A further centre on complex systems simulation was funded later at the University of Southampton
.
The work on novel computational approaches was superseded by work on cloud computing
as the significance of this area emerged during the project. Aston University
joined the consortium at this stage
The Key Publications below describe the work of the project in more detail.
scheme, coordinated by the University of York
that focuses on training and research in complex IT systems. Students on the programme take a range of core and optional taught modules and carry out research in conjunction with an industrial sponsor. The key difference between this programme and a conventional PhD is that students spend the majority of their time working with the industrial sponsor and may submit a portfolio thesis, describing several related research projects on a common theme, rather than a single topic.
Core modules on the scheme include
Students take a number of optional modules in addition to these core topics from computer science, mathematics and management. Overall, the core and optional modules are intended to provide EngD students with breadth as well as depth in LSCITS topics.
In parallel with the taught part of the programme, students carry out research; research projects span LSCITS topics, including socio-technical systems, high-performance computing, cloud computing, systems and software engineering, safety critical systems, interactive and accessible systems, and advanced decision making. EngD industrial sponsors include leading multi-national corporations, through to small-to-medium sized enterprises who wish to build research capability and capacity.
The Director reports to the chair of the LSCITS International Scientific Advisory Board, and to the chair of the LSCITS National Stakeholder Board . These two boards provide their guidance and advice on the LSCITS research and training programmes.
D. Cliff & L. Northrop (2011). The Global Financial Markets: An Ultra-Large Scale Systems Perspective. Briefing paper for UK Government Office for Science Foresight project on The Future of Computer Trading in the Financial Markets. September 2011. http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/bispartners/foresight/docs/computer-trading/11-1223-dr4-global-financial-markets-systems-perspective.pdf
I. Sommerville, D. Cliff, R. Calinescu, J. Keen, T. Kelly, M. Kwiatkowska, J. McDermid, and R. Paige. (2011) Large Scale Complex IT Systems. Preprint available from arXiv. http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.3444.
J. Keen. (2011) The Governance of Privacy and Confidentiality. Paper prepared for IRSPM XV, Dublin, 11-13 April 2011. Paper available at http://lscits.cs.bris.ac.uk/publications.html
J. Keen. (2009) Integration At Any Price: The Case of the NHS National Programme for IT. In: H Margetts, C Hood and 6 P (eds) Paradoxes of Modernization. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
I. Sommerville (editor). The Socio-technical Systems Engineering Handbook. (2011). University of St Andrews. http://archive.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/STSE-Handbook/
R.F. Paige, A. Galloway, R. Charalambous, X. Ge, P.J. Brooke: High-integrity agile processes for the development of safety critical software. IJCCBS 2(2): 181-216 (2011). doi: 10.1504/IJCCBS.2011.041259
J.R. Williams, S.M. Poulding, L.M. Rose, R.F. Paige, F.A. C. Polack: Identifying Desirable Game Character Behaviours through the Application of Evolutionary Algorithms to Model-Driven Engineering Metamodels. SSBSE 2011: 112-126. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-23716-4_13.
L. Feng, M. Kwiatkowska and D. Parker. (2011) Automated Learning of Probabilistic Assumptions for Compositional Reasoning. Proc. 14th International Conference on Fundamental Approaches to Software Engineering (FASE'11), volume 6603 of LNCS, pages 2-17, Springer. http://qav.cs.ox.ac.uk/papers/fase11.pdf
M. Kwiatkowska. (2007) Quantitative Verification: Models, Techniques and Tools. Proc. 6th joint meeting of the European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE), pages 449-458, ACM Press. http://qav.cs.ox.ac.uk/papers/esec-fse07.pdf
M. Kwiatkowska, G. Norman and D. Parker. (2009) PRISM: Probabilistic Model Checking for Performance and Reliability Analysis. ACM SIGMETRICS Performance Evaluation Review, 36(4), pages 40-45, ACM.
http://qav.cs.ox.ac.uk/papers/acmper_prismperf.pdf
A. Khajeh-Hosseini, D. Greenwood, J. W. Smith & I. Sommerville (2011). The Cloud Adoption Toolkit: Supporting Cloud Adoption Decisions in the Enterprise. Software: Practice and Experience - Special Issue on Software Architectures and Application Development Environments for Cloud Computing. Preprint available from http://arxiv.org/abs/1008.1900.
G. Goth (2008) "Ultralarge Systems: Redefining Software Engineering?" IEEE Software, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 91-94, May/June 2008, doi:10.1109/MS.2008.82 http://www.computer.org/csdl/mags/so/2008/03/mso2008030091-abs.html
H. Sillitto, (2010) "Design Principles for Ultra-Large-Scale Systems". Proc. 20th Annual International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) International Symposium, July, 2010, Chicago, IL, USA. https://sites.google.com/site/syssciwg/projects/unified-ontology-of-science-systems/reference-material/DesignprinciplesforULSSFinal.pdf
Northrop, L. et al. (2006). Ultra-Large-Scale Systems: The Software Challenge of the Future. Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. http://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/assets/ULS_Book20062.pdf (6.5MB download)
Cloud computing
Sociotechnical systems
System of systems
Ultra-Large-Scale Systems
Ultra-large-scale system is a term used in fields including Computer Science, Software Engineering and Systems Engineering to refer to software intensive systems with unprecedented amounts of hardware, lines of source code, numbers of users, and volumes of data...
or ULSS). The initiative is funded by the EPSRC, with more than ten million pounds
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
of funding awarded between 2006 and 2013.
Background
The initial motivation for the establishment of a research program in large-scale complex IT systems was the publication of a report by the Royal Academy of EngineeringRoyal Academy of Engineering
-Overview: is the UK’s national academy of engineering. The Academy brings together the most successful and talented engineers from across the engineering sectors for a shared purpose: to advance and promote excellence in engineering....
and the British Computer Society
British Computer Society
The British Computer Society, is a professional body and a learned society that represents those working in Information Technology in the United Kingdom and internationally...
. This report examined the causes of failure of a number of large software projects and made several recommendations for research to address some of these problems.
A second report, authored by Seth Bullock & Dave Cliff and also published in 2004, was commissioned by the UK Government's Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Office of Science and Technology and carried the title Complexity and Emergent Behaviour in ICT Systems The main conclusions of this report were that the primary challenges needing to be addressed in the UK are institutional and cultural obstacles to appropriate interdisciplinary research and that there was an urgent need to address omissions in UK undergraduate computer science education.
In October 2005, Dave Cliff was appointed Director of the LSCITS initiative by the EPSRC and was asked to consult extensively with industry on their problems in this area and, on the basis of this consultation, to form a consortium to tackle these problems. The results of the consultation were that the key concerns of industry were socio-technical issues arising from the interactions between organizations, people and systems and in high-integrity systems engineering. On the basis of this, a consortium was formed with two partners (York, Oxford) focusing on formal methods and high-integrity systems and two partners (Leeds, St Andrews) focusing on socio-technical systems. Subsequently, a further project focusing on cloud computing was approved with Bristol, St Andrews and Aston Universities as partners.
The 5-year research project started in October 2007 with the associated EngD program starting in October 2009.
Partners
- Aston UniversityAston UniversityAston University is a "plate glass" campus university situated at Gosta Green, in the city centre of Birmingham, England.Established in 1895 as the Birmingham Municipal Technical School, Aston was granted its Royal Charter as Aston University on 22 April 1966...
. School of Engineering and Applied Science (Dr Radu Calinescu) - University of BristolUniversity of BristolThe University of Bristol is a public research university located in Bristol, United Kingdom. One of the so-called "red brick" universities, it received its Royal Charter in 1909, although its predecessor institution, University College, Bristol, had been in existence since 1876.The University is...
. Department of Computer Science (Prof Dave Cliff) - University of LeedsUniversity of LeedsThe University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...
. Institute of Health Sciences (Prof Justin Keen) - University of OxfordUniversity of OxfordThe University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
. Department of Computer Science (Prof Marta KwiatkowskaMarta KwiatkowskaMarta Z. Kwiatkowska is a computer scientist based in the United Kingdom. She is Professor of Computing Systems at the Oxford University Computing Laboratory, University of Oxford, England....
) - University of St AndrewsUniversity of St AndrewsThe University of St Andrews, informally referred to as "St Andrews", is the oldest university in Scotland and the third oldest in the English-speaking world after Oxford and Cambridge. The university is situated in the town of St Andrews, Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. It was founded between...
. School of Computer Science (Prof Ian Sommerville) - University of YorkUniversity of YorkThe University of York , is an academic institution located in the city of York, England. Established in 1963, the campus university has expanded to more than thirty departments and centres, covering a wide range of subjects...
. Department of Computer Science (Prof. John McDermid)
Research
The aim of the LSCITS research project is:" to improve existing technical approaches to complex systems engineering and to develop new socio-technical approaches that help us understand the complex interactions between organisations, processes and systems" .
The LSCITS stack (Figure 1) shows the research areas that are particularly relevant to LSCITS.
The focus of the work of the project was initially in the following areas:
- Complexity in organisations (led by University of LeedsUniversity of LeedsThe University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...
) - Socio-technical systems engineering (led by University of St AndrewsUniversity of St AndrewsThe University of St Andrews, informally referred to as "St Andrews", is the oldest university in Scotland and the third oldest in the English-speaking world after Oxford and Cambridge. The university is situated in the town of St Andrews, Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. It was founded between...
). - Predictable software systems(led by University of OxfordUniversity of OxfordThe University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
) - High-integrity systems (led by University of YorkUniversity of YorkThe University of York , is an academic institution located in the city of York, England. Established in 1963, the campus university has expanded to more than thirty departments and centres, covering a wide range of subjects...
)
Work on mathematical foundations was not included as these were funded in a separate research programme by the EPSRC with complexity science research centres at the University of Bristol
University of Bristol
The University of Bristol is a public research university located in Bristol, United Kingdom. One of the so-called "red brick" universities, it received its Royal Charter in 1909, although its predecessor institution, University College, Bristol, had been in existence since 1876.The University is...
and the University of Warwick
University of Warwick
The University of Warwick is a public research university located in Coventry, United Kingdom...
. A further centre on complex systems simulation was funded later at the University of Southampton
University of Southampton
The University of Southampton is a British public university located in the city of Southampton, England, a member of the Russell Group. The origins of the university can be dated back to the founding of the Hartley Institution in 1862 by Henry Robertson Hartley. In 1902, the Institution developed...
.
The work on novel computational approaches was superseded by work on cloud computing
Cloud computing
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over a network ....
as the significance of this area emerged during the project. Aston University
Aston University
Aston University is a "plate glass" campus university situated at Gosta Green, in the city centre of Birmingham, England.Established in 1895 as the Birmingham Municipal Technical School, Aston was granted its Royal Charter as Aston University on 22 April 1966...
joined the consortium at this stage
The Key Publications below describe the work of the project in more detail.
The LSCITS EngD programme
The LSCITS EngD programme is an Engineering DoctorateEngineering Doctorate
The Engineering Doctorate scheme is a British postgraduate education programme promoted by the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council . The programme is undertaken over four years. Students conduct PhD-equivalent research and undertake taught business and technical courses whilst...
scheme, coordinated by the University of York
University of York
The University of York , is an academic institution located in the city of York, England. Established in 1963, the campus university has expanded to more than thirty departments and centres, covering a wide range of subjects...
that focuses on training and research in complex IT systems. Students on the programme take a range of core and optional taught modules and carry out research in conjunction with an industrial sponsor. The key difference between this programme and a conventional PhD is that students spend the majority of their time working with the industrial sponsor and may submit a portfolio thesis, describing several related research projects on a common theme, rather than a single topic.
Core modules on the scheme include
- Empirical Methods for LSCITS
- High-Integrity Systems Engineering
- Predictable Software Systems
- Socio-Technical Systems
- Systems Engineering for LSCITS
- Technology Innovation
Students take a number of optional modules in addition to these core topics from computer science, mathematics and management. Overall, the core and optional modules are intended to provide EngD students with breadth as well as depth in LSCITS topics.
In parallel with the taught part of the programme, students carry out research; research projects span LSCITS topics, including socio-technical systems, high-performance computing, cloud computing, systems and software engineering, safety critical systems, interactive and accessible systems, and advanced decision making. EngD industrial sponsors include leading multi-national corporations, through to small-to-medium sized enterprises who wish to build research capability and capacity.
Management and governance
Operational management of the entire LSCITS Initiative is the responsibility of the Director (Dave Cliff), and the two Initiative Co-Directors (Ian Sommerville and John McDermid). Ian Sommerville manages integration across the various LSCITS work-packages and activities. John McDermid works with Richard Paige, the LSCITS EngD Centre Director, to manage the York-based LSCITS Engineering Doctorate programme.The Director reports to the chair of the LSCITS International Scientific Advisory Board, and to the chair of the LSCITS National Stakeholder Board . These two boards provide their guidance and advice on the LSCITS research and training programmes.
Key publications
The papers below, organised according to the LSCITS stack shown in Figure 1, describe the work of the project. A full list of publications is available on the LSCITS web siteLSCITS in general
R. Calinescu & M. Kwiatkowska (2010). Software Engineering Techniques for the Development of Systems of Systems. In C. Choppy & O. Sokolski (editors), Foundations of Computer Software. Future Trends and Techniques for Development, vol. 6026 of LNCS, pp. 59-82, Springer. Preprint available from http://www.prismmodelchecker.org/bibitem.php?key=CK08.D. Cliff & L. Northrop (2011). The Global Financial Markets: An Ultra-Large Scale Systems Perspective. Briefing paper for UK Government Office for Science Foresight project on The Future of Computer Trading in the Financial Markets. September 2011. http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/bispartners/foresight/docs/computer-trading/11-1223-dr4-global-financial-markets-systems-perspective.pdf
I. Sommerville, D. Cliff, R. Calinescu, J. Keen, T. Kelly, M. Kwiatkowska, J. McDermid, and R. Paige. (2011) Large Scale Complex IT Systems. Preprint available from arXiv. http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.3444.
Complexity in organisations
J. Rooksby and I. Sommerville. (2012) The Management and Use of Social Network Sites in a Government Department. Computer-supported Cooperative Work - The Journal of Collaborative Computing. Preprint available from arXiv. http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.5454J. Keen. (2011) The Governance of Privacy and Confidentiality. Paper prepared for IRSPM XV, Dublin, 11-13 April 2011. Paper available at http://lscits.cs.bris.ac.uk/publications.html
J. Keen. (2009) Integration At Any Price: The Case of the NHS National Programme for IT. In: H Margetts, C Hood and 6 P (eds) Paradoxes of Modernization. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Socio-technical systems engineering
G. Baxter & I. Sommerville (2010). Socio-Technical Systems: From Design Methods to Systems Engineering. Interacting With Computers. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intcom.2010.07.003I. Sommerville (editor). The Socio-technical Systems Engineering Handbook. (2011). University of St Andrews. http://archive.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/STSE-Handbook/
High-integrity systems
X. Ge, R.F. Paige, J. McDermid: Probabilistic Failure Propagation and Transformation Analysis. SAFECOMP 2009: 215-228. http://lscits.cs.bris.ac.uk/docs/safecomp09.pdfR.F. Paige, A. Galloway, R. Charalambous, X. Ge, P.J. Brooke: High-integrity agile processes for the development of safety critical software. IJCCBS 2(2): 181-216 (2011). doi: 10.1504/IJCCBS.2011.041259
J.R. Williams, S.M. Poulding, L.M. Rose, R.F. Paige, F.A. C. Polack: Identifying Desirable Game Character Behaviours through the Application of Evolutionary Algorithms to Model-Driven Engineering Metamodels. SSBSE 2011: 112-126. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-23716-4_13.
Predictable software systems
R. Calinescu, L. Grunske, M. Kwiatkowska, R. Mirandola, G. Tamburrelli (2011). Dynamic QoS Management and Optimisation in Service-Based Systems. In: IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. Preprint available from http://www.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/doi/10.1109/TSE.2010.92.L. Feng, M. Kwiatkowska and D. Parker. (2011) Automated Learning of Probabilistic Assumptions for Compositional Reasoning. Proc. 14th International Conference on Fundamental Approaches to Software Engineering (FASE'11), volume 6603 of LNCS, pages 2-17, Springer. http://qav.cs.ox.ac.uk/papers/fase11.pdf
M. Kwiatkowska. (2007) Quantitative Verification: Models, Techniques and Tools. Proc. 6th joint meeting of the European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE), pages 449-458, ACM Press. http://qav.cs.ox.ac.uk/papers/esec-fse07.pdf
M. Kwiatkowska, G. Norman and D. Parker. (2009) PRISM: Probabilistic Model Checking for Performance and Reliability Analysis. ACM SIGMETRICS Performance Evaluation Review, 36(4), pages 40-45, ACM.
http://qav.cs.ox.ac.uk/papers/acmper_prismperf.pdf
Cloud computing
John Cartlidge and Ilango Sriram (2011). Modelling resilience in cloud-scale data centres. Proceedings of 23rd European Modeling and Simulation Symposium, Rome. September 2011 http://lscits.cs.bris.ac.uk/docs/modellingresilience.pdfA. Khajeh-Hosseini, D. Greenwood, J. W. Smith & I. Sommerville (2011). The Cloud Adoption Toolkit: Supporting Cloud Adoption Decisions in the Enterprise. Software: Practice and Experience - Special Issue on Software Architectures and Application Development Environments for Cloud Computing. Preprint available from http://arxiv.org/abs/1008.1900.
See also
Ultra-large scale systems: Overview. Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. http://www.sei.cmu.edu/uls/G. Goth (2008) "Ultralarge Systems: Redefining Software Engineering?" IEEE Software, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 91-94, May/June 2008, doi:10.1109/MS.2008.82 http://www.computer.org/csdl/mags/so/2008/03/mso2008030091-abs.html
H. Sillitto, (2010) "Design Principles for Ultra-Large-Scale Systems". Proc. 20th Annual International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) International Symposium, July, 2010, Chicago, IL, USA. https://sites.google.com/site/syssciwg/projects/unified-ontology-of-science-systems/reference-material/DesignprinciplesforULSSFinal.pdf
Northrop, L. et al. (2006). Ultra-Large-Scale Systems: The Software Challenge of the Future. Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. http://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/assets/ULS_Book20062.pdf (6.5MB download)
Cloud computing
Cloud computing
Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over a network ....
Sociotechnical systems
Sociotechnical systems
Sociotechnical systems in organizational development is an approach to complex organizational work design that recognizes the interaction between people and technology in workplaces. The term also refers to the interaction between society's complex infrastructures and human behaviour...
System of systems
System of systems
System of systems is a collection of task-oriented or dedicated systems that pool their resources and capabilities together to create a new, more complex system which offers more functionality and performance than simply the sum of the constituent systems...