Courses
Future-Proof Software Systems
Lecture (WS 14) - Organisation
News
- There are currently no news for this lecture.
Objectives
Software is the fuel which powers most of today’s products and services. Their functionality, quality and competitiveness depend on the performance of their software. Banking systems, energy distribution grids, traffic control systems, cars, airplanes, trains, mobile phones, PCs, medical devices and many more run on more or less visible software.
Software and the ability to produce software has therefore become a key competitive factor in most industries. The quality, development cost, and time-to-market of software often decide over success or failure of a product or service. In order to enable a competitive industry, we need agile, dependable, resilient and affordable systems based on software which in this lecture are introduced as future-proof software-systems”.
Future-proofness of a software-system is measured by three key characteristics: business value, agility, and resilience. Business value expresses the potential of the software to generate revenue for the company. Agility is the capability of the software to react quickly (in terms of time to market) and with reasonable development cost to new requirements. Resilience is the foundation to operate successfully in complex or hostile environments, i.e. to continue operation in cases of faults or attacks.
In a future-proof software-system business value, agility, and resilience are continuously and measurably improved. The corresponding process is Managed Evolution. Managed Evolution is a philosophy and a method for the evolution of software to improve the three coordinates business value”, agility”, and resilience”.
A future-proof software-system is the result of its architecture. Only a well defined, adequate and consistently evolving architecture assures the necessary structure to allow continuous improvement of business value, agility, resilience, and other quality attributes. Fortunately, systems architecture has matured from a black art” to a well founded system science today. Architecture is taught and implemented using architecture principles. This lecture focuses on the important architecture principles for future-proof software-systems presenting the IT architects toolbox”.
In addition, the necessary context and the skills of a future-proof software-systems engineer” are defined and explained. The lecture will contribute to the student’s knowledge and skills to become valuable, leading software architects in their future companies.
Time and Venue
The lecture covers 2 SWS / 3 ECTS and is given from 11:10 AM - 02:30 PM (3. and 4. DS) on Tuesday in room INF/E051.
Please regularly check the section 'lecture' on this website for updates. The current lecture dates and topics are listed in that section and updated on demand. Additionally, changes will be announced in the news section as well.
A poster of the lecture is available for download.
Special Issue at Ringvorlesung Softwareentwicklung in der industriellen Praxis
Dr. Frank J. Furrer will give a guest talk on Jan 26th, 2015 in Room INF(APB)/E006 on "Industrial Software: Business Value, Agility, and Resilience". The lecture will be held in German language. You are invited to attend. Futher information is available here.
Lecturer
This lecture is held in English by Dr. Frank J. Furrer, an independent industry consultant.
Dr. Furrer is co-author of the book "Managed Evolution - A Strategy for Very Large Information Systems. Springer Verlag, Heidelberg, 2011.
Exams
Participants can receive a mark via an oral exam or a not graded certificate of attendance.
For the latter you need to sign the attendance list provided during each lecture.
An oral exam covering the topics of this lecture takes 15 minutes. Furthermore, the presented content can be examined as a part of a complex exam.
Please check your exam regulations which type of credit (mark / certificate) you need. If you are interested in an examination date or a certificate of attendance, please write an email to katrin.heber[at]tu-dresden.de (Secretary of the Chair of Software Technology). She will schedule the exams. Further information and sample exam questions are provided here.
An oral exam covering the topics of this lecture takes 15 minutes. Furthermore, the presented content can be examined as a part of a complex exam.
Please check your exam regulations which type of credit (mark / certificate) you need. If you are interested in an examination date or a certificate of attendance, please write an email to katrin.heber[at]tu-dresden.de (Secretary of the Chair of Software Technology). She will schedule the exams. Further information and sample exam questions are provided here.
Allowances
The course can be used for the modules as specified by the department: here. Students with other exam regulations can attend the course, but cannot do the exam.