Guest Editorial for the Special Issue on the 2005 IEEE/IFIP Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks, including the Dependable Computing and Communications and Performance and Dependability Symposia

NOW more than ever, dependable computing systems, along with secure networking and communication infrastructures, are essential to critical applications and services. This is due, in particular, to the emergence of very large-scale systems made up of myriads of ever-evolving and often mobile computerized devices with numerous and complex interactions and interdependencies. Moreover, the increasingly broad spectrum of threats—physical or human-made, accidental or malevolent—to these various layers and interfaces adds another difficult facet to the challenge. The people in charge of designing intricate computing systems are concerned with developing and implementing resilient components, architectures, networks, protocols, software algorithms, and applications. In addition, topics related to the assessment of the properties achieved both during the development process and in operation are also critical. Verification (proving and testing) and evaluation, including analytical modeling, simulation, field measurements, and controlled experiments, are necessary for the successful exploitation and monitoring of these systems. This special issue aims to serve researchers, designers, and implementers of dependable and secure systems and infrastructures. It includes a set of papers presented at the Dependable Computing and Communication Symposium (DCCS) and the Performance and Dependability Symposium (PDS) that were part of the sixth edition of the annual IEEE/IFIP Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN) Conference held in Yokohama, Japan, in 2005. The technical program of DSN-2005 included 77 regular papers covering a wide range of relevant issues and showing the depth and breadth of our community’s research efforts. This collection was the result of the tough and thorough selection process that characterizes this conference in both symposia. For DCCS, from the 205 submissions, with contributions originating from 35 countries from all continents, 50 regular papers were accepted by the program committee based on a total of 846 reviews with an average of 4.13 reviews per paper. PDS received 94 submissions from 19 countries from all continents and 27 papers were accepted by the PC based on a total of 435 reviews with an average of 4.63 reviews per paper. Two subcommittees were formed to select a small number of papers from each symposium to form this DSN special issue. We want to thank the members of these subcommittees, chaired by the guest editors: for DCCS, Christian Cachin, Farnam Jahanian, Carl Landwehr, Raimundo Macedo and Nirmal Saxena, and, for PDS, Nuno Neves, Aad van Moorsel, and Markus Siegle. Their dedication in carrying out this selection on a tight schedule was outstanding. Out of a total of 77 regular papers, six papers were selected from DCCS and three from PDS and the authors were invited to submit properly extended versions of their contributions. Each paper went through another two rounds of review by qualified experts, some of them already familiar with these papers because they had been reviewers for DSN and others specifically invited to perform this review. In the end, seven papers successfully went through this selection process and will be archived in TDSC as a sample of the excellent program of DSN-2005. These papers cover a broad subset of the symposia themes. They include contributions on architecting systems, devising procedures and protocols, modeling and measuring systems, covering hardware and software layers, and coping with threats ranging from accidental to malicious faults. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON DEPENDABLE AND SECURE COMPUTING, VOL. 3, NO. 3, JULY-SEPTEMBER 2006 169