Making Systems of Systems Orchestration Safer

Orchestration, an approach to service composition, has emerged as a promising solution to integrate independent constituent systems (CS) in a System of Systems (SoS). However, safety in SoS orchestrations remains unexplored. In this paper, we introduce SOSoS (Safe Orchestration of Systems of Systems), a process that utilizes the System-Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) steps extended with the features proposed in the software product line engineering (SPLE) approach to cope with safety in the inherent SoS variability. We also demonstrate SOSoS in action by considering a case study from the construction domain. As a result, we define SoS-level safety constraints that could lead to actionable technical recommendations for making systems of systems orchestrations safer.

Keywords: System of systems, Orchestration, Safety analysis, System-theoretic process analysis, Variability.