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Assurance

Assurance software engineering standards are published by ISO/IEC/IEEE. They include the ISO/IEC/IEEE 15026 series, which covers concepts and vocabulary, assurance case, system integrity levels, and assurance in the life cycle.

ISO/IEC/IEEE 15026-1:2019

Systems and software engineering - Systems and software assurance - Part 1: Concepts and vocabulary

This document defines assurance-related terms and establishes an organized set of concepts and relationships to form a basis for shared understanding across user communities for assurance. It provides information to users of the other parts of ISO/IEC/IEEE 15026 including the combined use of multiple parts. The essential concept introduced by ISO/IEC/IEEE 15026 (all parts) is the statement of claims in an assurance case and the support of those claims through argumentation and evidence. These claims are in the context of assurance for properties of systems and software within life cycle processes for the system or software product. Assurance for a service being operated and managed on an ongoing basis is not covered in ISO/IEC/IEEE 15026 (all parts). A variety of potential users of ISO/IEC/IEEE 15026 (all parts) exists including developers and maintainers of assurance cases and those who wish to develop, sustain, evaluate or acquire a system that possesses requirements for specific properties in such a way as to be more certain of those properties and their requirements. ISO/IEC/IEEE 15026 (all parts) uses concepts and terms consistent with ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207 and ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288 and generally consistent with the ISO/IEC 25000 series, but the potential users of ISO/IEC/IEEE 15026 (all parts) need to understand the differences from concepts and terms to which they may be accustomed. This document attempts to clarify these differences. The primary purpose of this document is to aid users of the other parts of ISO/IEC/IEEE 15026 by providing context, concepts and explanations for assurance, assurance cases and integrity levels. While essential to assurance practice, details regarding exactly how to measure, demonstrate or analyse particular properties are not covered. These are the subjects of more specialized standards of which a number are referenced and included in the Bibliography.

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ISO/IEC 15026-2:2011

Systems and software engineering - Systems and software assurance - Part 2: Assurance case

ISO/IEC 15026-2:2011 specifies minimum requirements for the structure and contents of an assurance case to improve the consistency and comparability of assurance cases and to facilitate stakeholder communications, engineering decisions, and other uses of assurance cases. An assurance case includes a top-level claim for a property of a system or product (or set of claims), systematic argumentation regarding this claim, and the evidence and explicit assumptions that underlie this argumentation. Arguing through multiple levels of subordinate claims, this structured argumentation connects the top-level claim to the evidence and assumptions. Assurance cases are generally developed to support claims in areas such as safety, reliability, maintainability, human factors, operability, and security, although these assurance cases are often called by more specific names, e.g. safety case or reliability and maintainability (R M) case. ISO/IEC 15026-2:2011 does not place requirements on the quality of the contents of an assurance case and does not require the use of a particular terminology or graphical representation. Likewise, it places no requirements on the means of physical implementation of the data, including no requirements for redundancy or co-location.

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ISO/IEC 15026-3:2015

Systems and software engineering - Systems and software assurance - Part 3: System integrity levels

ISO/IEC 15026-3:2015 specifies the concept of integrity levels with corresponding integrity level requirements that are required to be met in order to show the achievement of the integrity level. It places requirements on and recommends methods for defining and using integrity levels and their corresponding integrity level requirements. It covers systems, software products, and their elements, as well as relevant external dependences. This part of ISO/IEC 15026 is applicable to systems and software and is intended for use by the following: a) definers of integrity levels such as industry and professional organizations, standards organizations, and government agencies; b) users of integrity levels such as developers and maintainers, suppliers and acquirers, system or software users, assessors of systems or software and administrative and technical support staff of systems and/or software products. One important use of integrity levels is by suppliers and acquirers in agreements; for example, to aid in assuring safety, financial, or security characteristics of a delivered system or product. ISO/IEC 15026-3:2015 does not prescribe a specific set of integrity levels or their integrity level requirements. In addition, it does not prescribe the way in which integrity level use is integrated with the overall system or software engineering life cycle processes. It does, however, provide an example of use of this part of ISO/IEC 15026 in Annex A.

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ISO/IEC/IEEE 15026-4:2021

Systems and software engineering - Systems and software assurance - Part 4: Assurance in the life cycle

This document provides guidance and recommendations for assurance of a selected claim about the system-of-interest by achieving the claim and showing the achievement. The guidance and recommendations are given in a system assurance process view on top of ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288 and a software assurance process view on top of ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207.

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