Description
Section 3: Secure Software Architecture and Solutions
This section considers the last part of your optimization of the current situation for secure software development. Having surveyed the current state and future state of secure software development for your selected organization, this section seeks to finalize an optimized solution.
You will return to the present state and reconsider architecture used by both secure software development solutions and security operations to synthesize an improved architecture. This architecture will consider changes in technology, applications, and the evolution of value differences that are represented by general security processes and strategy.
The synthesis of technology, new software, and security through value defenses will make significant changes to the original ideas and expectations detailed in the first weeks of the course. Including the current state and the current desired state, while including a desired state in the future, implies the integration of the business strategy with information technology for better unified outcomes. In creating a secure software architecture, secure software development and information operations are likely to change. The synthesis is likely to consider the future state and start the tactical adjustments for the strategy to deliver solutions in the next five years. In line with regular strategy, you should not anticipate this to be a one-off attempt to lock in a road to the future. In this field, it is vital to remain agile, meaning that the plans will be updated and polished on a regular basis.
To achieve the learning and processes outlined above, your objective is to make use of peer-reviewed research articles as the core part of your learning and assignments. The direct benefit to you is a foundation that is likely to be relevant to any security or cybersecurity dissertation. Your collection of quality sources will remain current to remain a valuable resource to your dissertation. Hopefully, you can define your formal article for the last week, Week 8, so that it will aid your research and your dissertation.
Secure Software Architecture
A software architecture differs from regular architecture in that it integrates information flows, applications, and people to optimize the processes that create value within the organization. The corporate culture frequently plays a role. You should consider the firm’s vision, mission, and value statements. A security software architecture includes the value defenses through the inclusion of safety and risk reduction as an important concern.
Your work in the previous weeks has considered the past, present, and potential future state of an organization’s value creation and value defenses. Within the changing environment, you must consider changes in the solutions that are important for the organization as well as how the solution is created. Do not forget that this is a combination of people and technology that delivers results. In addition, consider the added importance of technology that might be external to the organization, many remote employees, and others that may work for other organizations. You must also consider customers, suppliers, service providers, and many more. Add innovative technologies such as cloud computing, multiple cloud computing, cloud brokers, containerization, IoT, increasing levels of automation and robotics, machine learning, and more.
By using a reasonable prediction of the future, how would you design an architecture that considers software development and security? You would use what you understand to be the current situation and what that situation should become. How does you start the tactics to deliver a future solution?
Software architecture can be considered to include functions and interactions that achieve the desired outcome. It works within an information technology architecture that has selected methods of accumulating and storing data plus the foundations of processing the functions and interactions of those functions. For this week, take the broader definition to include choices relating to the context around the software, leading to a holistic view of the defenses. For example, operating system, databases, virtualization, object-oriented, service-oriented architecture, and containerization represent some of the influences that will change your approach to the secure software architecture considerations in this week.
This week can be summarized as a synthesis of your learning to Week 3 and the learning in Weeks 4 through 6, especially the Week 6 assignment. It certainly is not a simple combination of the assignments; however, those assignments will define how you can construct an architecture that matches the current state and prepares for the future state.
Review this week’s resources carefully. You are expected to apply the information from these resources (as well as previously provided resources) when preparing your assignments.
Assignment: Prescribe a Secure Software Development Architecture While Catering for Future Needs
Instructions
For this assignment, you must write a visually appealing blog post worthy of publication with two or three visual elements that prescribes a secure software development architecture that caters to future needs. Your strategy may imply a change in architecture.
Blog posts tend to have catchy titles, contain interesting graphics, and use headers and subtitles to make specific content stand out. They are often written using shorter paragraphs, include valuable information or a take-home message to the reader, and include explanations of any jargon or technical/professional terminology.
Be sure to cite any images, tables, or figures you do not create yourself and do not refer to the assignment or the University after the title page.
