John Harauz
Phone: +1 416 493 0010
Email: j.harauz@sympatico.ca

Area:
Southern Ontario, Northwestern  New York area – if within reasonable driving distance from Toronto

John Harauz is a senior member of the IEEE. He serves as chair of planning and marketing for the Standards Activities Board (SAB) and editor of the Computer Magazine Standards Column. He is SAB liaison to the Professional Practices Committee, the Conference and Tutorials committee, the Electronic Products and Services Board, and the Membership Committee. He served for many years as Conference vice-chair for the Software Engineering Standards Committee.

John Harauz is currently an engineering consultant after having worked for Ontario Power Generation for 26 years. He is a recognized authority on engineering standards and practice for safety-related computer systems, including the regulatory licensing of such systems. He holds a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Electrical Engineering and a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of Toronto.  John is a member of the Professional Engineers of Ontario (PEO) and also holds the IEEE Computer Society’s new certification, Certified Software Development Professional (CSDP).

John is also a member of the following International standards committees:

1. IEC TC45 WGA3, "Software for Computers in the Safety Systems of Nuclear Power Plants",
2. ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7 "Software and System Engineering",
3. IEEE Systems and Software Engineering Standards Committee.

Safety and Security Considerations in Developing Software
Developing software is an inherently risky proposition – balancing budget and schedule constraints while ensuring the efficiency, effectiveness, safety, security, and quality of the software.  The software development process is a complex undertaking comprised of specifying, designing, implementing, and testing.  Many companies building critical software applications are not using proper procedures from a software-engineering and safety/security-engineering perspective. Many sector specific standards and generic IEC standards exist that address requirements for developing safety-critical and security-critical software.

Safety and security concerns necessarily increase the rigor of the software engineering process and verification is an especially important consideration.  Also, extra effort may be required because of additional processes, e.g., hazards analysis/threat analysis, risk management, use of formal techniques, need for specialized tools etc.

Sector-specific safety standards for instance are: automotive (SAE AS9100), aircraft (RTC_DO-178-B), space (NASA-STD-8719.13.b), nuclear (IEC 60880, IEEE 7.4.3-2), medical devices (ISO13485), railways (CNELEC Standards) and defence (MOD-0056, DOD-STD-1172). There are other important standards like UL 1998 Standard for Software in Programmable Components, IEEE 1228 Standard on Safety Plans and the horizontal ISO/IEC 61508 series of standards on functional safety for programmable electronic safety-related systems. The Integrated Capability Maturity Model has just recently defined extensions to address both Safety and Security.

Software Engineering as a Profession.
Software  Engineering is Achieving Recognition as an Engineering Profession:

•          Licensing for software engineers is underway in Texas, British Columbia, Ontario, Canada and other countries.

•          Rochester Institute of Technology granted the first Software Engineering bachelor’s degrees in 2001. Other universities have followed.

•          There is now a mechanism for accreditation of university curricula in software engineering.

•          IEEE-CS/ACM Software Engineering Curriculum 2004 is published.

•          IEEE-CS Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge, 2004 Version is published in book form and on the web. The Body of Knowledge for software engineering already exists in the literature. The mission of the SWEBOK project was to provide an authoritative guide to the portion that is “generally accepted.”

•          ACM/IEEE-CS Software Engineering Code of Ethics was completed in 1998.

The above along with the set of professional practice standards: IEEE and international standards on software engineering, forms the basis for the IEEE Computer Society certification program (CSDP). It is supported by appropriate training programs and materials. The certification demonstrates the certified individual has the knowledge to ensure that recognized principles and practices of software engineering are being used.