Keynote Presentation

Gerard J. Holzmann JPL "Software Architectures for Reliable Systems"

Abstract:

A system cannot be made reliable by pretending that it can be built from perfect and unbreakable parts. Components can fail. A reliable system is one in which the possibility of component failure is taken into account, and fault containment mechanisms are put in place to prevent impact on the safety of the overall system. We know quite well how to do this with hardware, especially in the design of spacecraft. But what works for hardware does not necessarily work in the same way for software. New principles of fault containment will have to be discovered.

Bio:

Gerard J. Holzmann received his Ph.D. from Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands in 1979. He joined Bell Labs Research in 1980 and moved to NASA/JPL in in 2003, where he currently leads the Laboratory for Reliable Software.

Dr. Holzmann is best known as the author of the logic model checker SPIN, which is one of the most widely used formal software verification systems today. In 2001, the SPIN tool was recognized with the prestigious ACM Software System Award.

In 2002 Holzmann received the ACM SIGSOFT Outstanding Research Award, and in 2005 he was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE). In 2006 Holzmann was one of the recipients of the ACM Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award. Holzmann published four books, over 70 technical papers, and holds seven U.S. patents.