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Low Level Design Documentation for a Large Fortune 1000 Networking Vendor

The Challenge: Creating Complex Documentation with Time that Resources Don't Have

One of our large networking vendors pursued Common Criteria evaluation with compliance to the Medium Robustness Protection Profile. This rigorous evaluation standard requires (among other things) semi-formal documentation of product subsystems, modules, and internal/external interfaces.

Developers know this stuff. It's in their heads and scratched on bar napkins. It's jotted down in functional specifications and captured in source code comments. Presenting this low-level design information in a manner that can be efficiently detailed and evaluated takes time, which is a rare commodity in the product development community.

The Apex Assurance Advantage: Leading from the First Step

Apex Assurance Group was hired to help this company digest the requirements of semi-formal, low-level designs and ultimately complete the required information. We facilitated the presentation of the architecture, asking the tough questions or how things work and how they work together.

Using tools and techniques to organize and categorize the information, we developed a template for developers to fill in the appropriate source code files, interface descriptions, APIs, and logs parameters. The challenge was to create a template that could be used by multiple development teams in locations spanning the globe.

The Result: Successful Evaluation

Using the materials provided, the client was able to successfully gather required data, organize it, and "fill in the blanks" to meet the content and presentation requirements of this rigorous standard. The client saved weeks of searching and experimenting, allowing their development teams to spend more time on other important tasks.