Collaboration and communication: growing and sustaining ultra large scale (ULS) systems

Mission- and life-critical Ultra-Large-Scale (ULS) systems are increasingly prevalent and networked in many domains, including business, aviation, communication, defense, finance, health, and public utilities. Such systems are often too complex for generally centralized methods to work well for such tasks as requirements discovery, development, system integration, test, deployment, configuration, operation protection, and evolution. Yet today we lack sound methods and technologies for distributing these tasks across large ecosystems of system production. What technical, legal, contractual, and cultural frameworks are needed to enable global partners with independent, sometimes conflicting agendas, to function effectively in the execution of such tasks? Can a competitive and collaborative distributed design ecosystem deliver value and robustness over time consistent with demands for quality, intellectual property protection, and other such requirements? Join this panel of industry experts and academic researchers who will share and debate their perspectives and lay out a vision for the future.