DevSecOps for Hardware: Incorporating Security at Every Level in Digital Engineering

The DevOps principles that were developed to rapidly build and scale software can be applied to the design of hardware systems.

In the space industry, we’ve seen how this approach fundamentally changed American launch culture, as companies such as SpaceX and Planet Labs proved that the processes used by cross-functional teams to design and build a rocket or spacecraft were just as ready for innovation as the hardware itself. 

Increasingly, the defense industry is showing growing interest in applying DevOps for Hardware Engineering, as well. Initiatives such as the U.S. Air Force’s Digital Materiel Management show that national security leaders believe the application of data and digital infrastructure can empower teams to better collaborate, and increase the pace of innovation and delivery that are necessary to deliver cutting-edge capabilities that keep pace with the needs of the mission and meet strategic aims.

For Digital Engineering to be adopted across the defense ecosystem, it must align with the needs of systems to protect and defend our nation. Chiefly, security must be integrated at every step of the process through deployment. 

That's why, across the defense industry, the term "DevOps" has been supplanted by the more important DevSecOps — the nexus of development, security and operations.

In the world of Digital Engineering, how can Security be incorporated into the DevOps for Hardware Engineering process? In this blog post, we'll highlight three key principles of implementing DevOps in Hardware Engineering, and discuss how DevSecOps factors into each of these steps, as well.

Breaking Down Team Silos – with Scoped Access Controls

Applying DevOps to hardware engineering breaks down team silos, encouraging early-and-often cross-functional collaboration between design, analysis and manufacturing engineers. This approach allows teams to move faster via more and regular communication, rapidly increasing the velocity of iteration cycles and decreasing the bureaucracy that can come in-between engineers talking with one another. But when removing siloes, it’s important to also ensure that the access is properly scoped, especially when considering the security of a hardware engineering project. This becomes even more important when collaborating with external parties like a contractor/sub-contractor relationship.

For example, when collaborating with a subcontractor to design up to a singular interface, applying a DevSecOps perspective dictates that you should only provide them with access to the digital engineering elements that pertain to that specific interface. This is already a common approach in many aspects of the engineering and design process, such as providing a reduced node Craig-Bampton Model for a coupled loads analysis, rather than the full finite element model. Similar descoping of interfaces and information should be applied to other digital engineering and model-based engineering artifacts, and the team at Prewitt Ridge has implemented limited scope access controls into our product Verve – schedule a demo with us to learn more!

Establishing Automation and Continuous Integration – While Maintaining Information Integrity

Automation and continuous integration are also crucial to implementing DevOps for hardware. Continuous Integration can help automate repetitive, time-consuming, and error-prone tasks, like emailing files or requirements back and forth, manually typing new parameters into an analysis script, or downloading an updated CAD file and then uploading the file into an analysis toolset, resetting the boundary conditions and re-running the analysis.

However, when considering the Security portion of DevSecOps, it is critical to ensure that these automated analyses are both executing in a secure environment and can ensure data integrity of the parameters they may be updating or referencing through advanced revision controls. If a DevSecOps pipeline is constantly updating the analysis result values being collected as verification evidence, it’s critical to have revision controls in place to allow traceability of the history of these values as they have changed over time, and to ensure that there is integrity of information across the entire engineering design lifecycle.

Embracing Agile Methodologies – with Security In Mind

Lastly, it is critical to integrate Agile Methodologies into the digital engineering lifecycle to fully implement DevOps into your hardware engineering processes. Fortunately, Agile and DevSecOps are just as complementary as Agile and DevOps, with the added focus of iteratively layering security into your processes and system design efforts. Agile's approach to breaking down large, complex projects into manageable tasks enables hardware teams to adapt and respond effectively to changes. This flexibility is essential in a field where technological advancements and customer needs evolve rapidly, and is also essential when continuously updating and evolving the security related to your product and the product lifecycle.

Establish DevSecOps for Hardware Engineering with Prewitt Ridge

Applying DevSecOps makes security part of the digital fabric that runs through every stage of a complex hardware system. At Prewitt Ridge, we’re taking hard lessons learned from DevOps, Hardware Engineering and building and launch complex systems to help engineering teams out innovate their competitors. To learn how your team can implement DevSecOps for Hardware Engineering, schedule a demo with us here!