Knowledge Elicitation And Conceptual Modeling To Foster Security And Trust In Soa System Evolution

Software systems based upon Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) are often large, heterogeneous and difficult to understand. Evolving such systems presents some unique challenges. For example, it is critical to understand the impacts on trust relationships and security as SOA systems evolve. A substantial body of work exists on the idea of knowledge elicitation and management through the creation of knowledge models, which are created to represent the conceptual knowledge of experts. Knowledge modeling based upon concept maps is an efficient process and knowledge representation scheme that holds potential to assist planning in evolving SOA systems. This chapter contains two examples of knowledge modeling in support of SOA system evolution. The first example is an academic study that illustrates the use of knowledge modeling to create a software security assurance case. The second example, which is the main focus of this chapter, pertains to the ongoing evolution of a large, real-world Sustainment Management System software suite named PAVER (TM). This software is being modified to allow third-party add-in functionality to interact with the base system and to create a SOA federation with other enterprise systems. This article contains a description of a knowledge elicitation and modeling effort to identify trust concerns as this increasingly large and complex federation evolves.