New projects in Air Power impose strong demands for optimizing the computing resources that host functionality of aircraft systems, as well as the physical means of conveying their functional exchanges.

This need for optimization is responded by the move from the paradigm of dedicated computers interconnected through local buses to that of computers providing partitioned resources to multiple systems interconnected through an aircraft data network, usually based on Ethernet technology and providing deterministic features.

The new architectural concept leads to the advent of shared computing platforms and aircraft networks as specific aircraft systems, usually addressed under ATA 42.

Moreover, the architectural concept of shared computing and networks prompts a new way of working for the development lifecycle stage, with separate roles for architecting ATA 42, architecting user systems, developing applicative software and integrating the resulting software ...