Exploring Maintainability Assurance Research for Service- and Microservice-Based Systems: Directions and Differences

To ensure sustainable software maintenance and evolution, a diverse set of activities and concepts like metrics, change impact analysis, or antipattern detection can be used. Special maintainability assurance techniques have been proposed for service- and microservice-based systems, but it is difficult to get a comprehensive overview of this publication landscape. We therefore conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) to collect and categorize maintainability assurance approaches for service-oriented architecture (SOA) and microservices. Our search strategy led to the selection of 223 primary studies from 2007 to 2018 which we categorized with a threefold taxonomy: a) architectural (SOA, microservices, both), b) methodical (method or contribution of the study), and c) thematic (maintainability assurance subfield). We discuss the distribution among these categories and present different research directions as well as exemplary studies per thematic category. The primary finding of our SLR is that, while very few approaches have been suggested for microservices so far (24 of 223, ?11%), we identified several thematic categories where existing SOA techniques could be adapted for the maintainability assurance of microservices

Quality-aware model-driven service engineering

Service engineering and service-oriented architecture as an integration and platform technology is a recent approach to software systems integration. Quality aspects ranging from interoperability to maintainability to performance are of central importance for the integration of heterogeneous, distributed service-based systems. Architecture models can substantially influence quality attributes of the implemented software systems. Besides the benefits of explicit architectures on maintainability and reuse, architectural constraints such as styles, reference architectures and architectural patterns can influence observable software properties such as performance. Empirical performance evaluation is a process of measuring and evaluating the performance of implemented software. We present an approach for addressing the quality of services and service-based systems at the model-level in the context of model-driven service engineering. The focus on architecture-level models is a consequence of the black-box character of services

Experiences with the use of MERODE in the development of a web based application.

This article presents an experience report on using MERODE as the business modeling method for the development of a web application. MERODE has several advantages as improving the flexibility and maintainability of applications and the possibility of doing automated verification and validation on the internal consistency of the model. The application's main functionalities were managing the organisation of events and managing the general information of a research group. The developed application was monitored in order to check its flexibility and maintainability and also to verify the feasibility of using the method. The results show that in fact the flexibility and maintainability of the application were satisfactory.

A Model-Driven Architecture Approach to the Efficient Identification of Services on Service-oriented Enterprise Architecture

Service-Oriented Enterprise Architecture requires the efficient development of loosely-coupled and interoperable sets of services. Existing design approaches do not always take full advantage of the value and importance of the engineering invested in existing legacy systems. This paper proposes an approach to define the key services from such legacy systems effectively. The approach focuses on identifying these services based on a Model-Driven Architecture approach supported by guidelines over a wide range of possible service types

Integrating IVHM and Asset Design

Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) describes a set of capabilities that enable effective and efficient maintenance and operation of the target vehicle. It accounts for the collection of data, conducting analysis, and supporting the decision-making process for sustainment and operation. The design of IVHM systems endeavours to account for all causes of failure in a disciplined, systems engineering, manner. With industry striving to reduce through-life cost, IVHM is a powerful tool to give forewarning of impending failure and hence control over the outcome. Benefits have been realised from this approach across a number of different sectors but, hindering our ability to realise further benefit from this maturing technology, is the fact that IVHM is still treated as added on to the design of the asset, rather than being a sub-system in its own right, fully integrated with the asset design. The elevation and integration of IVHM in this way will enable architectures to be chosen that accommodate health ready sub-systems from the supply chain and design trade-offs to be made, to name but two major benefits. Barriers to IVHM being integrated with the asset design are examined in this paper. The paper presents progress in overcoming them, and suggests potential solutions for those that remain. It addresses the IVHM system design from a systems engineering perspective and the integration with the asset design will be described within an industrial design process

Cyber physical systems implementation for asset management improvement: A framework for the transition

Libro en Open AccessThe transformation of the industry due to recent technologies introduction is an evolving process whose engines are competitiveness and sustainability, understood in its broadest sense (environmental, economic and social). This process is facing, due to the current state of scientific and technological development, a new challenge yet even more important: the transition from discrete technological solutions that respond to isolated problems, to a global conception where the assets, plant, processes and engineering systems are conceived, designed and operated as an integrated complex unit. This vision is evolving besides a set of concepts that are, in some way, to guide this development: Smart Factories, Cyber-Physical Systems, Factory of the Future or Industry 4.0, are examples. The full integration of the operation and maintenance (O&M) processes in the production systems is a key topic within this new paradigm. Not only that, this evolution necessarily results in the emergence of new processes and needs of O&M, i.e. also, the O&M will undergo a profound transformation. The transition from actual isolated production assets to such Industry 4.0 with CPS is far from easy. This document presents a proposal to develop such transition adapting one iteration of the Model of Maintenance Management (MMM) integrated into ISO 55000 to the complexity of incorporating “System of Systems” CPSs maintenance. It involves several stages: identification, prioritization, risk management, planning, scheduling, execution, control, and improvement supported by system engineering techniques and agile/concurrent project managemen

Microservice Transition and its Granularity Problem: A Systematic Mapping Study

Microservices have gained wide recognition and acceptance in software industries as an emerging architectural style for autonomic, scalable, and more reliable computing. The transition to microservices has been highly motivated by the need for better alignment of technical design decisions with improving value potentials of architectures. Despite microservices' popularity, research still lacks disciplined understanding of transition and consensus on the principles and activities underlying "micro-ing" architectures. In this paper, we report on a systematic mapping study that consolidates various views, approaches and activities that commonly assist in the transition to microservices. The study aims to provide a better understanding of the transition; it also contributes a working definition of the transition and technical activities underlying it. We term the transition and technical activities leading to microservice architectures as microservitization. We then shed light on a fundamental problem of microservitization: microservice granularity and reasoning about its adaptation as first-class entities. This study reviews state-of-the-art and -practice related to reasoning about microservice granularity; it reviews modelling approaches, aspects considered, guidelines and processes used to reason about microservice granularity. This study identifies opportunities for future research and development related to reasoning about microservice granularity.Comment: 36 pages including references, 6 figures, and 3 table

Integrating IVHM and asset design

Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) describes a set of capabilities that enable effective and efficient maintenance and operation of the target vehicle. It accounts for the collecting of data, conducting analysis, and supporting the decision-making process for sustainment and operation. The design of IVHM systems endeavours to account for all causes of failure in a disciplined, systems engineering, manner. With industry striving to reduce through-life cost, IVHM is a powerful tool to give forewarning of impending failure and hence control over the outcome. Benefits have been realised from this approach across a number of different sectors but, hindering our ability to realise further benefit from this maturing technology, is the fact that IVHM is still treated as added on to the design of the asset, rather than being a sub-system in its own right, fully integrated with the asset design. The elevation and integration of IVHM in this way will enable architectures to be chosen that accommodate health ready sub-systems from the supply chain and design trade-offs to be made, to name but two major benefits. Barriers to IVHM being integrated with the asset design are examined in this paper. The paper presents progress in overcoming them, and suggests potential solutions for those that remain. It addresses the IVHM system design from a systems engineering perspective and the integration with the asset design will be described within an industrial design process

Modeling the object-oriented software process: OPEN and the unified process

A short introduction to software process modeling is presented, particularly object-oriented modeling. Two major industrial process models are discussed: the OPEN model and the Unified Process model. In more detail, the quality assurance in the Unified Process tool (formally called Objectory) is reviewed

Integrating the IS with the enterprise: Key EAI research challenges

Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) technologies provide the means to integrate strategic business solutions within and across the component parts of organisational information system infrastructures. The continuing development of both digitally integrated business models, through various eCommerce and eBusiness initiatives, has meant that the importance of EAI within enterprise IS, has increased significantly. Noting that EAI incurs not only technological but stakeholder-level commitments, this paper outlines the product of a sustained investigation into key challenges within Enterprise IS and EAI, and provides a framework for future research and investigation into this emerging and evolving area