Do tej pory modularne argumentacje mogły być tworzone w PREMIS zgodnie z podejściem bottom-up. Najpierw należało utworzyć argumentację poszczególnych modułów, utworzyć w nich interfejsy, przypisać do nich elementy argumentacji i w końcu powiązać moduły. Wynik tego procesu mógł być zaprezentowany w diagramie architektury assurance case. To był długi i żmudny proces.

Zaczynając od wersji 1.2 PREMIS można stosować podejście top-down w budowie modularnych argumentacji. Umożliwia to tworzenie modułów i łączenie ich poprzez moduły bez potrzeby tworzenia jakiejkolwiek zawartości tych modułów. Argumentacje modułów mogą być tworzone, gdy są już określone interfejsy i powiązania.

Zaletą podejścia jest rozdzielenie poziomów decyzyjnych. Osobno są podejmowane decyzje dotyczące architektury assurance case, a osobno decyzje dotyczące argumentacji w poszczególnych modułach. W szczególności, te pierwsze decyzje mogą być podejmowane bez potrzeby specyfikacji jakichkolwiek postulatów lub innych elementów modułów. W ramach rozwoju architektury tworzone są puste interfejsy oraz powiązania, do których są przypisywane elementy w późniejszych fazach rozwoju argumentacji.

Krótki film poniżej prezentuje, jak można tworzyć modularne assurance case stosując podejście top-down w PREMIS 1.2:

Until now, modular assurance cases in PREMIS could only be developed from the bottom up. That is, you had to develop the argumentation of all the modules, create interfaces, assign argument elements to the interfaces, and finally bind the modules. The result can be presented in an architecture diagram. This was a long and tedious process.

Starting from version 1.2 of PREMIS, you can also develop modular assurance cases top-down. You can first create argument modules and bind them to interfaces without adding elements within these modules. Module arguments can be created once interfaces and bindings are defined.

The advantage of this approach is the separation of decision levels. Decisions can be made separately about the architecture of the assurance case, and separately about the structure of the arguments in each module. In particular, the former decisions can now be made without going into technical details and without specifying specific claims. In the process of architecture development, empty interfaces are created to connect modules. They are to be filled in the second step, during argument development.

The short video below shows how to create modular assurance cases using the top-down approach in PREMIS 1.2:

PREMIS, a containerized assurance case tool, will replace NOR-STA at the end of July. Containerization allows us to improve application portability, security, performance and maintainability. PREMIS will maintain the full range of NOR-STA features and the API, and will additionally offer new possibilities. Migrating from NOR-STA to PREMIS will be smooth for users and will not impact the assurance case projects they are working on.

Portability. Containerized applications can be run anywhere, without any modifications. You can deploy PREMIS in a could environment such as Azure or AWS, in any Kubernetes environment in a virtual machine or on a dedicated hardware server. You can easily move the application from one containerization environment to another.

Security. First, the isolation introduced by containerization provides an additional layer of security. Containers are isolated from each other and from the host operating system. Secondly, great advantage of containerization is the speed of delivery of security updates. Argevide implements and improves the DevSecOps process through secure coding practices and automatic static, dynamic security testing (SAST and DAST) in the solution release pipeline and continuous security monitoring. We control the security of our solution and quickly deliver updates to resolve new vulnerabilities.

Performance and scalability. Containers are the most efficient way of software virtualization with minimal overhead. Containerization management tools allow to adjust allocated resources and manage containers’ instances depending on the current usage. This can be made automatically for each individual container. When needed any container can be moved to another hardware platform to improve performance without the interruption of the application operation.

Maintainability. Containerization management tools enable a uniform way of applications deployment, testing, upgrades and rollbacks. Monitoring tools continuously check containers health and status. DevOps pipeline allows to deliver application updates quickly and minimize downtime.

Summarizing, containerization and the DevSecOps process make PREMIS an even more effective, secure, scalable and reliable solution.

If you want to learn more about PREMIS containerization please contact us at office@argevide.com