Information Assurance in modern ATE

For modern Automatic Test Equipment (ATE), one of the most daunting tasks conducting Information Assurance (IA). In addition, there is a desire to Network ATE to allow for information sharing and deployment of software. This is complicated by the fact that typically ATE are "unmanaged" systems in that most are configured, deployed, and then mostly left alone. This results in systems that are not patched with the latest Operating System updates and in fact may be running on legacy Operating Systems which are no longer supported (like Windows XP or Windows 7 for instance). A lot of this has to do with the cost of keeping a system updated on a continuous basis and regression testing the Test Program Sets (TPS) that run on them. Given that an Automated Test System can have thousands of Test Programs running on it, the cost and time involved in doing complete regression testing on all the Test Programs can be extremely expensive. In addition to the Test Programs themselves some Test Programs rely on third party Software and / or custom developed software that is required for the Test Programs to run. Add to this the requirement to perform software steering through all the Test Program paths, the length of time required to validate a Test Program could be measured in months in some cases. If system updates are performed once a month like some Operating System updates this could consume all the available time of the Test Station or require a fleet of Test Stations to be dedicated just to do the required regression testing. On the other side of the coin, a Test System running an old unpatched Operating System is a prime target for any manner of virus or other IA issues. This paper will discuss some of the pro's and con's of a managed Test System and how it might be accomplished.