data manager software component serves as an interface between an external configuration data store and one or more applications processes and threads in contrast with techniques of the prior art the illustrative embodiment does not suffer from the risk of undetected corruption of vital data and therefore is especially advantageous in safety critical systems application_number US 20724408 A description fig1 depicts a schematic diagram of the salient elements of safety critical software system 100 in accordance with the illustrative embodiment of the present invention as shown in fig1 software system 100 comprises data manager 101 configuration data store 102 and applications 103 1 through 103 n where n is a positive integer data manager 101 is a software component that is capable of obtaining configuration data values from configuration data store 102 and of controlling access to these values and is described in detail below and with respect to fig5 configuration data store 102 is one of a database an unstructured file system a data structure stored in main memory etc that is capable of storing configuration data values in accordance with the illustrative embodiment configuration data store 102 stores the configuration data values in an extensible markup language xml document as is described below and with respect to fig2 each of applications 103 1 through 103 n where n is a positive integer is a computer program that performs a well defined set of functions in safety critical system 100 as is well known in the art fig2.