ISO/IEC TR 12182:2015

TECHNICAL ISO/IEC TR
REPORT 12182
Second edition
2015-05-01
Systems and software engineering —
Framework for categorization of IT
systems and software, and guide for
applying it
Ingénierie des systèmes et du logiciel — Cadre pour la catégorisation
des systèmes et du logiciel de la technologie de l’information et guide
pour son application
Reference number
©
ISO/IEC 2015
© ISO/IEC 2015, Published in Switzerland
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, no part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized otherwise in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or posting on the internet or an intranet, without prior
written permission. Permission can be requested from either ISO at the address below or ISO’s member body in the country of
the requester.
ISO copyright office
Ch. de Blandonnet 8 • CP 401
CH-1214 Vernier, Geneva, Switzerland
Tel. +41 22 749 01 11
Fax +41 22 749 09 47
copyright@iso.org
www.iso.org
ii © ISO/IEC 2015 – All rights reserved

Contents Page
Foreword .iv
Introduction .v
1 Scope . 1
2 Normative references . 1
3 Terms and definitions . 1
4 Framework for categorization . 3
4.1 General . 3
4.2 Model for categorization . 3
4.3 Structure of classification axes . 5
5 Guide for applying the framework for categorization . 9
5.1 Description table for categorization . 9
5.2 Procedure for categorization . 9
5.3 Example of defining categorization.10
5.4 Example of using categorization .11
5.4.1 Applicability of technologies .11
5.4.2 Supporting IT decisions .13
Annex A (informative) Examples of defining applicability of Systems and Software
Engineering Standards using categorizations .15
Annex B (informative) Examples of supporting IT decisions: required level of quality .17
Bibliography .20
© ISO/IEC 2015 – All rights reserved iii

Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International Electrotechnical
Commission) form the specialized system for worldwide standardization. National bodies that are
members of ISO or IEC participate in the development of International Standards through technical
committees established by the respective organization to deal with particular fields of technical
activity. ISO and IEC technical committees collaborate in fields of mutual interest. Other international
organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO and IEC, also take part in the
work. In the field of information technology, ISO and IEC have established a joint technical committee,
ISO/IEC JTC 1.
The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are
described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular the different approval criteria needed for
the different types of document should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the
editorial rules of the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 (see www.iso.org/directives).
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject
of patent rights. ISO and IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
Details of any patent rights identified during the development of the document will be in the Introduction
and/or on the ISO list of patent declarations received (see www.iso.org/patents).
Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users and does not
constitute an endorsement.
For an explanation on the meaning of ISO specific terms and expressions related to conformity
assessment, as well as information about ISO’s adherence to the WTO principles in the Technical Barriers
to Trade (TBT), see the following URL: Foreword — Supplementary information.
The committee responsible for this document is ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology, Subcommittee
SC 7, Software and Systems Engineering.
This second edition cancels and replaces the first edition (ISO/IEC TR 12182:1998), which has been
technically revised.
iv © ISO/IEC 2015 – All rights reserved

Introduction
This Technical Report has several purposes which are directed to its various intended audiences in
the systems and software engineering community, including the developers and users of systems and
software engineering standards.
Since ISO/IEC TR 12182:1998 was published, more than 15 years passed with various changes in
Information Technology (IT) arena. Those changes include the following:
— IT evolution by hardware advancement, operating systems growth, and communication network
changes;
— advent of new type of applications such as entire enterprise applications including ERP (Enterprise
Resource Planning), SCM (Supply Chain Management); social systems including online financial
systems, healthcare systems, traffic management systems; embedded systems including car
electronics; and highly interactive systems handling multi-media and using mobile technologies
such as smart phones and tablet computers;
— Internet becoming one of important lifelines;
— emergence of SaaS (software as a service), big data systems and cloud computing services;
— growing impact of the quality of systems and software, in particular safe and secure manner.
By taking these important situational changes, the role and contribution expected for IT industry
becomes dramatically increasing, and in order to respond to these expectation, several improvements
to the ISO/IEC TR 12182:1998 are made in this revision as follows:
— the scope is enhanced from software to systems and software;
— a framework for describing categorizations is provided in place of a specific set of categorizations;
— relationship to other International Standards available in systems and software engineering
area is added.
The categorization of systems and software itself should evolve over time because systems and software
engineering is a fast growing field, and therefore this Technical Report does not provide a specific set of
categorizations but a framework for categorizations in contrast to the previous one.
For developers and providers of systems and software technologies such as software products,
techniques and tools, and research results, this Technical Report will provide the way to define categories
of systems and software to which a particular technology can apply. This will help the technology users
sort out a right set of technologies, which are applicable (and effective) in the context of their use.
For developers of systems and software engineering standards, this Technical Report will provide
ability to position and prioritize specific usage of standards and clauses within the structure of systems
and software engineering standards. It is also intended that, wherever applicable, new or on-going
projects can identify and use the target categories to provide guidelines on how to apply the standards
in different contexts of use. Addressing target categories will not only ease the coordination among
projects but also increase the value of standards for their users.
© ISO/IEC 2015 – All rights reserved v

TECHNICAL REPORT ISO/IEC TR 12182:2015(E)
Systems and software engineering — Framework for
categorization of IT systems and software, and guide for
applying it
1 Scope
This Technical Report specifies the manner in which categorizations of IT systems and software are
organized and expressed. It provides the framework for categorizations, and a guide for applying it. This
allows any community to clarify their scope of the systems by using their own definition of categories.
The scope of application of the framework is intended to IT systems and software, including services
provided by IT systems, where they can be of main targets but not limited to.
The purpose of this Technical Report includes the following:
a) developers of systems and software engineering standards can define their applicability to different
categories of target systems and software using annexes or guidelines, so that their users can easily
identify relevant standards and clauses that they can apply;
b) suppliers of systems and software engineering tools and methods can clarify the types of target
systems and software to which their technologies are applicable or limited so that their users can
easily choose the right tools and methods among many candidates for their use;
c) providers of services can define characteristics of their services using classification axes so that
they can specify the quality of their services;
d) developers and evaluators of the systems and software can categorize systems and software of
similar characteristics by using classification axes so that they can obtain a better estimation and
quality evaluation of their target systems and software to be developed;
e) the systems and software engineering community can exchange their research ideas and best
practices with defined scope of application.
This Technical Report does not provide a specific set of categorizations but the framework for
categorizations and a guide for applying it to achieve the above purposes.
It is important that standards on systems and software engineering are properly applied to the
procurement or development of certain kinds of systems. This Technical Report provides a categorization
framework and a guide for applying it to assist in (1) defining the area of application of standards, and
(2) positioning new standards. The annex of this Technical Report provides descriptive examples for
relevant standards, each of which describes the area of application of the standard by using defined
categorization.
NOTE Giving guidance on applicability might not be relevant to all standards.
2 Normative references
No normative references are made for the application of this document.
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.
© ISO/IEC 2015 – All rights reserved 1

3.1
stakeholder
individual or organization having a right, share, claim, or interest in the target system and its
categorization that meet their needs and expectations
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC 15939:2007, 2.37, “system” replaced by “target system”]
3.2
concern
interest in something relevant to one or more of its stakeholders
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010:2011, 3.7, “system” replaced by “something”]
3.3
IT system
system which uses information technologies
3.4
target system
system to be categorized, which can be an IT system and software, including service provided by IT system
3.5
categorization
specific way to allocate a target system into a category
3.6
categorization space
universal set of systems and software which has one or more classification axes as its individual
dimension, by which stakeholder’s concerns on categorization are expressed
3.7
classification axis
total range of a mapping of systems and software for categorizing them from a particular perspective
3.8
equivalence class
range on a classification axis which has a rule to judge whether a target system is to be mapped to
the range or not
3.9
category
subset of categorization space, which the stakeholders are interested in, specified using a combination
of one or more equivalence classes
3.10
architecture
fundamental organization of a system embodied in its components, their relationships to each other,
and to the environment, and the principles guiding its design and evolution
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC 15288:2008, 4.5]
3.11
environment
context determining th
...