Software Certification and Software Certificate Management Systems

Software certification demonstrates the reliability and safety of software systems in such a way that it can be checked by an independent authority with minimal trust in the techniques and tools used in the certification process itself. It builds on existing software assurance, validation, and verification techniques but introduces the notion of explicit sojbvare certijicates, which contain all the information necessary for an independent assessment of the demonstrated properties. A software certijicate management system (SCMS) provides a range of certification services. It maintains the links between , different system artifacts (e.g., design documents, engineering data sets, or programs) and different varieties of certificates, checks the validity of certificates, provides access to explicit audit trails, enables browsing of certification histories, and enforces systemwide certification and release policies. We believe that a customizable SCMS with support for automated re-certification of diverse artifacts should become an essential part of any effective development process. Its primary impact is to increase the reliability and safety of software systems by providing automation support for their audit. A SCMS can at any time provide current information about the certification status of each component in the system, check whether certificates have been audited, compute which certificates remain valid after a system modification, and automatically start an incremental re-certification. We are particularly interested in the combination of software certification with automated code generation and formal verification methods. Here, our focus is on the related questions of how code generators can support the certification process, and how software certification can be used to demonstrate and increase the reliability of the code generation process.