Mission assurance
Encyclopedia
Mission Assurance is a full life-cycle engineering process to identify and mitigate design, production, test, and field support deficiencies of mission success.
, quality, and management principles to achieve success of a design, development, testing, deployment, and operations process. Mission Assurance's ideal is achieving 100% customer success every time. Mission Assurance reaches across the enterprise, supply base, business partner
s, and customer base
to enable customer success.
The ultimate goal of Mission Assurance is to create a state of resilience that supports the continuation of an agency's critical business process
es and protects its employees, assets, services, and functions. Mission Assurance addresses risks in a uniform and systematic manner across the entire enterprise.
Mission Assurance is an emerging cross-functional discipline that demands its contributors (project management, governance, system architecture, design, development, integration, testing, and operations) provide and guarantee their combined performance in use.
The United States Department of Defense
8500-series of policies has three defined mission assurance categories that form the basis for availability
and integrity
requirements.
A Mission Assurance Category (MAC) is assigned to all DoD systems
.
It reflects the importance of an information system for the successful completion of a DoD mission. It also determines the requirements for availability and integrity.
NASA's Process Based Mission Assurance Knowledge Based System is an implementation of Mission Assurance that provides "quick and easy access to critical Safety & Mission Assurance data... across all NASA programs and projects."
(IA) to protect data and systems often conflicts with Mission Assurance 'get the job done' attitude. This conflict is largely eliminated when the focus of Information Assurance is bifurcated into (1) protecting the infrastructure and data, and (2) securely sharing information with authorized recipients.
Aspects of Mission Assurance
Mission Assurance includes the disciplined application of system engineering, risk managementRisk management
Risk management is the identification, assessment, and prioritization of risks followed by coordinated and economical application of resources to minimize, monitor, and control the probability and/or impact of unfortunate events or to maximize the realization of opportunities...
, quality, and management principles to achieve success of a design, development, testing, deployment, and operations process. Mission Assurance's ideal is achieving 100% customer success every time. Mission Assurance reaches across the enterprise, supply base, business partner
Business partner
Business partner is a term used to denote a commercial entity with which another commercial entity has some form of alliance. This relationship may be a highly contractual, exclusive bond in which both entities commit not to ally with third parties...
s, and customer base
Customer base
The customer base is the group of customers and/or consumers that a business serves. In the most situations, a large part of this group is made up of repeat customers with a high ratio of purchase over time. These customers are the main source of consumer spending...
to enable customer success.
The ultimate goal of Mission Assurance is to create a state of resilience that supports the continuation of an agency's critical business process
Business process
A business process or business method is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks that produce a specific service or product for a particular customer or customers...
es and protects its employees, assets, services, and functions. Mission Assurance addresses risks in a uniform and systematic manner across the entire enterprise.
Mission Assurance is an emerging cross-functional discipline that demands its contributors (project management, governance, system architecture, design, development, integration, testing, and operations) provide and guarantee their combined performance in use.
The United States Department of Defense
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
8500-series of policies has three defined mission assurance categories that form the basis for availability
Availability
In telecommunications and reliability theory, the term availability has the following meanings:* The degree to which a system, subsystem, or equipment is in a specified operable and committable state at the start of a mission, when the mission is called for at an unknown, i.e., a random, time...
and integrity
Integrity
Integrity is a concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one's actions...
requirements.
A Mission Assurance Category (MAC) is assigned to all DoD systems
.
It reflects the importance of an information system for the successful completion of a DoD mission. It also determines the requirements for availability and integrity.
- MAC I systems handle information vital to the operational readiness or effectiveness of deployed or contingency forces. Because the loss of MAC I data would cause severe damage to the successful completion of a DoD mission, MAC I systems must maintain the highest levels of both integrity and availability and use the most rigorous measure of protection.
- MAC II systems handle information important to the support of deployed and contingency forces. The loss of MAC II systems could have a significant negative impact on the success of the mission or operational readiness. The loss of integrity of MAC II data is unacceptable; therefore MAC II systems must maintain the highest level of integrity. The loss of availability of MAC II data can be tolerated only for a short period of time, so MAC II systems must maintain a medium level of availability. MAC II systems require protective measures above industry best practices to ensure adequate integrity and availability of data.
- MAC III systems handle information that is necessary for day-to-day operations, but not directly related to the support of deployed or contingency forces. The loss of MAC III data would not have an immediate impact on the effectiveness of a mission or operational readiness. Since the loss of MAC III data would not have a significant impact on mission effectiveness or operational readiness in the short term, MAC III systems are required to maintain basic levels of integrity and availability. MAC III systems must be protected by measures considered as industry best practices.
NASA's Process Based Mission Assurance Knowledge Based System is an implementation of Mission Assurance that provides "quick and easy access to critical Safety & Mission Assurance data... across all NASA programs and projects."
Mission Assurance and Information Assurance Implementation Conflicts
In practice, the security-focused desires of Information AssuranceInformation Assurance
Information assurance is the practice of managing risks related to the use, processing, storage, and transmission of information or data and the systems and processes used for those purposes...
(IA) to protect data and systems often conflicts with Mission Assurance 'get the job done' attitude. This conflict is largely eliminated when the focus of Information Assurance is bifurcated into (1) protecting the infrastructure and data, and (2) securely sharing information with authorized recipients.
See also
- Information AssuranceInformation AssuranceInformation assurance is the practice of managing risks related to the use, processing, storage, and transmission of information or data and the systems and processes used for those purposes...
- Reliability engineeringReliability engineeringReliability engineering is an engineering field, that deals with the study, evaluation, and life-cycle management of reliability: the ability of a system or component to perform its required functions under stated conditions for a specified period of time. It is often measured as a probability of...
- AvailabilityAvailabilityIn telecommunications and reliability theory, the term availability has the following meanings:* The degree to which a system, subsystem, or equipment is in a specified operable and committable state at the start of a mission, when the mission is called for at an unknown, i.e., a random, time...
- IntegrityIntegrityIntegrity is a concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one's actions...