Abstract :
Quality assurance is well understood in the hardware/manufacturing community but not necessarily within the software community. The meaning of Information assurance depends on who you ask; those in the computer security field interpret information assurance as the need to protect the information, those in quality assurance relate information assurance to the quality of the information. Software assurance ranks even poorer in understanding; although most would agree that it relates to quality, they would be unsure what that means. System assurance is well understood due to its basis on known systems-engineering principles, tending to emphasize the dichotomy of hardware and software concept understanding. In this issue, three articles address parts of the assurance puzzle, which includes: quality assurance, information assurance, software assurance, and system assurance. The combination of these four builds the argument for trust, which is the sole reason for building assurances. To help avoid costly mismatches, consider looking at which part of the assurance puzzle you need solved first before looking at supposed assurance solutions.
