A Model-based Repository of Security and Dependability Patterns for Trusted RCES

Abstract

The requirement for higher Security and Dependability (S&D) of systems is continuously increasing, even in domains traditionally not deeply involved in such issues. Nowadays, many practitioners express their worries about current S&D software engineering practices. New recommendations should be considered to ground this discipline on two pillars: solid theory and proven principles. We took the second pillar towards software engineering for embedded system applications, focusing on the problem of integrating S&D by design to foster reuse. Model driven approaches combined with patterns can be extremely helpful to deal with these strong requirements. In this work, we present a framework for trusted Resource Constrained Embedded Systems (RCES) development by design, by defining both a model to represent S&D pattern language and an architecture for development tools. The implementation of a repository of S&D patterns and their complementary property models is discussed in detail.