About Design Patterns

Design patterns are about how to construct a design, given a statement of a problem and a set of forces that act upon it. In the information technology environment, they give programming architects and systems designers a method for defining reusable solutions to design problems without ever having to talk about or write program code - i.e. they are truly program-language independent.

We see that software architects and designers need to be enabled to design their own architectures. As the proverb says: 'It's better to teach a man how to fish than to give him fish'. In this context it is better to explain how to use a proven methodology - design patterns - to design security architectures, than to publish a selection of architectures that have to then be modified to fit every need.

Security Design Patterns (SDP) technical guide

Version 1 was published in April 2004, and is available online as a free download from our Publications Web site at http://www.opengroup.org/publications/catalog/g031.htm

The objective of this Technical Guide to Security Design Patterns is to meet the needs of an IT architect or systems designer who:

• is looking for guidance (not instructions) on how to solve their conflicting information security design problems in the context of their own business system
• wants to develop a stable but extensible security architecture that properly reflects their business requirements and the design choices they needed to make.
• would like to know how The Open Group's information security experts would tackle their problems.

The opening chapters are tutorial in style, describing the nature and structure of the design patterns, and how to use them. The bulk of the Guide is a catalog of security design patterns, separated into Available System Patterns and Protected System Patterns.

Review Comments are welcome

If you are interested in further discussion and ongoing work in reviewing and applying these design patterns then we will be pleased to add you to our list of external contacts so we can keep you informed on future developments.

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