JSB Composability and Web Services Interoperability Via Extensible Modeling & Simulation Framework (XMSF), Model Driven Architecture (MDA), Component Repositories, and Web-based Visualization

Study Report prepared for the U. S. Air Force, Joint Synthetic Battlespace Analysis of Technical Approaches (ATA) Studies & Prototyping Overview: This paper summarizes research work conducted by organizations concerned with interoperable distributed information technology (IT) applications, in particular the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) and Old Dominion University (ODU). Although the application focus is distributed modeling & simulation (M&S) the results and findings are in general easily applicable to other distributed concepts as well, in particular the support of operations by M&S applications, such as distributed mission operations. The core idea of this work is to show the necessity of applying open standards for component description, implementation, and integration accompanied by aligned management processes and procedures to enable continuous interoperability for legacy and new M&S components of the live, virtual, and constructive domain within the USAF Joint Synthetic Battlespace (JSB). JSB will be a common integration framework capable of supporting the future emerging simulation needs ranging from training and battlefield rehearsal to research, system development and acquisition in alignment with other operational requirements, such as integration of command and control, support of operations, integration of training ranges comprising real systems, etc. To this end, the study describes multiple complementary Integrated Architecture Framework approaches and shows, how the various parts must be orchestrated in order to support the vision of JSB effectively and efficiently. Topics of direct relevance include Web Services via Extensible Modeling & Simulation Framework (XMSF), the Object Management Group (OMG)’s Model Driven Architecture (MDA), XML-based resource repositories, and Web-based X3D visualization. To this end, the report shows how JSB can − Utilize Web Services throughout all components via XMSF methodologies, − Compose diverse system visualizations using Web-based X3D graphics, − Benefit from distributed modeling methods using MDA, and − Best employ resource repositories for broad and consistent composability. Furthermore, the report recommends the establishment of necessary management organizations responsible for the necessary alignment of management processes and procedures within the JSB as well as with neighbored domains. Continuous interoperability cannot be accomplished by technical standards alone. The application of technical standards targets the implementation level of the system of systems, which results in an interoperable solution valid only for the actual 2 implementation. To insure continuity, the influence of updates, upgrades and introduction of components on the system of systems must be captured in the project management procedures of the participating systems. Finally, the report proposes an exemplifying set of proof-of-capability demonstration prototypes and a five-year technical/institutional transformation plan. All key references are online available at http://www.movesinstitute.org/xmsf/xmsf.html (if not explicitly stated otherwise)

An intelligent framework for dynamic web services composition in the semantic web

As Web services are being increasingly adopted as the distributed computing technology of choice to securely publish application services beyond the firewall, the importance of composing them to create new, value-added service, is increasing. Thus far, the most successful practical approach to Web services composition, largely endorsed by the industry falls under the static composition category where the service selection and flow management are done a priori and manually. The second approach to web-services composition aspires to achieve more dynamic composition by semantically describing the process model of Web services and thus making it comprehensible to reasoning engines or software agents. The practical implementation of the dynamic composition approach is still in its infancy and many complex problems need to be resolved before it can be adopted outside the research communities. The investigation of automatic discovery and composition of Web services in this thesis resulted in the development of the eXtended Semantic Case Based Reasoner (XSCBR), which utilizes semantic web and AI methodology of Case Based Reasoning (CBR). Our framework uses OWL semantic descriptions extensively for implementing both the matchmaking profiles of the Web services and the components of the CBR engine. In this research, we have introduced the concept of runtime behaviour of services and consideration of that in Web services selection. The runtime behaviour of a service is a result of service execution and how the service will behave under different circumstances, which is difficult to presume prior to service execution. Moreover, we demonstrate that the accuracy of automatic matchmaking of Web services can be further improved by taking into account the adequacy of past matchmaking experiences for the requested task. Our XSCBR framework allows annotating such runtime experiences in terms of storing execution values of non-functional Web services parameters such as availability and response time into a case library. The XSCBR algorithm for matchmaking and discovery considers such stored Web services execution experiences to determine the adequacy of services for a particular task. We further extended our fundamental discovery and matchmaking algorithm to cater for web services composition. An intensive knowledge-based substitution approach was proposed to adapt the candidate service experiences to the requested solution before suggesting more complex and computationally taxing AI-based planning-based transformations. The inconsistency problem that occurs while adapting existing service composition solutions is addressed with a novel methodology based on Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP). From the outset, we adopted a pragmatic approach that focused on delivering an automated Web services discovery and composition solution with the minimum possible involvement of all composition participants: the service provider, the requestor and the service composer. The qualitative evaluation of the framework and the composition tools, together with the performance study of the XSCBR framework has verified that we were successful in achieving our goal

Developing Distributed System with Service Resource Oriented Architecture

 Service oriented architecture (SOA) is a design paradigm in software engineering for an enterprise scale which built in a distributed system environment. This paradigm aims at abstracting of application functionality as a service through a protocol in web service technology, namely simple object access protocol (SOAP). However, SOAP have static characteristic and oriented by the service methode, so have restrictiveness on creating and accessing for big numbers of service. For this reason, this reasearch aims at combining SOA with resource oriented architecture (ROA) that is oriented by the service resource use representational state transfer (REST) protocol in order to expand scalability of service. This combination is namely service resource oriented architecture (SROA). SROA can optimize distributing of applications and integrating of services where is implemented to develop the project management software. To realize this model, the software is developed according with framework of Agile model driven development (AMDD) to reduce complexities on the whole stage processing of software development

Research on key techniques of flexible workflow based approach to supporting dynamic engineering design process

Error on title page - correct year of award is 2015 not 2013.Engineering design process (EDP) is a highly dynamic and creative process, and the capability in managing an EDP is considered as a major differentiating factor between competing enterprises. The most important prerequisite to establish an engineering design process excellence is a proper management of all the design process activities and the associated information. The most important impact in recent years on the EDP and on the activities of designers has come from computer-based data processing. Workflow, the automation of a business processes in whole or part, is a useful tool for modelling and managing a business process which can be reprensented by a workflow model (computerized process definition). By considering the dynamic characteristics of EDP, an EDP management system must be flexible enough to support the creative and dynamic EDP. After the introduction of engineering design process and its new trend, as well as flexible workflow technology, reviews of both engineering design process and its supporting flexible workflow technology shows that there is a need for a holistic framework to automate and coordinate design activities in the creative and dynamic EDP, and the flexible workflow technology should also be improved comprehensively in flexibility and intelligence in order to support better engineering design management. By introducing the relations between the EDP and flexible workflow, a virtual workflow and an autonomic flexible workflow built upon autonomic computing is investigated, and an innovative engineering design process management framework based on multi-autonomic objects flexible workflow is proposed. For the flexible workflow modelling in the framework, a dynamic instance-based flexible workflow modelling method is proposed for multi-autonomic objects flexible workflow. In order to improve the intelligence of flexible workflow, after examining the principle of flexible workflow intelligence in flexible workflow, a new flexible workflow autonomic object intelligence algorithm based on both extended Mamdani fuzzy reasoning and neural network is proposed, weighted fuzzy reasoning algorithm, as well as precise and fuzzy hybrid knowledge reasoning algorithm is designed; a bionic flexible workflow adaptation algorithm is proposed to improve the intelligence of autonomic object flexible workflow further. According to the characteristic of EDP, such as cross-enterprises and geographical distribution, and in order to realize the flexible execution of distributed flexible workflow engine, a distributed flexible workflow engine architecture based on web service is proposed and a flexible workflow model description method based on extended WSDL (Web Service Description Language) and BPEL4WS (Business Process Execution Language for Web Services) is proposed. A flexible workflow prototype system supporting engineering design process is implemented according to the proposed EDP management framework in Microsoft VS.Net 2005 environment. The framework is demonstrated by the application in an EDP of a MTO company, and it shows that the proposed framework can support the creative and dynamic process in an efficient way. Finally, the strengths and weakness of the framework as well as the prototype system is discussed based on the results of the evaluation, and the proposed areas of future work are given.Engineering design process (EDP) is a highly dynamic and creative process, and the capability in managing an EDP is considered as a major differentiating factor between competing enterprises. The most important prerequisite to establish an engineering design process excellence is a proper management of all the design process activities and the associated information. The most important impact in recent years on the EDP and on the activities of designers has come from computer-based data processing. Workflow, the automation of a business processes in whole or part, is a useful tool for modelling and managing a business process which can be reprensented by a workflow model (computerized process definition). By considering the dynamic characteristics of EDP, an EDP management system must be flexible enough to support the creative and dynamic EDP. After the introduction of engineering design process and its new trend, as well as flexible workflow technology, reviews of both engineering design process and its supporting flexible workflow technology shows that there is a need for a holistic framework to automate and coordinate design activities in the creative and dynamic EDP, and the flexible workflow technology should also be improved comprehensively in flexibility and intelligence in order to support better engineering design management. By introducing the relations between the EDP and flexible workflow, a virtual workflow and an autonomic flexible workflow built upon autonomic computing is investigated, and an innovative engineering design process management framework based on multi-autonomic objects flexible workflow is proposed. For the flexible workflow modelling in the framework, a dynamic instance-based flexible workflow modelling method is proposed for multi-autonomic objects flexible workflow. In order to improve the intelligence of flexible workflow, after examining the principle of flexible workflow intelligence in flexible workflow, a new flexible workflow autonomic object intelligence algorithm based on both extended Mamdani fuzzy reasoning and neural network is proposed, weighted fuzzy reasoning algorithm, as well as precise and fuzzy hybrid knowledge reasoning algorithm is designed; a bionic flexible workflow adaptation algorithm is proposed to improve the intelligence of autonomic object flexible workflow further. According to the characteristic of EDP, such as cross-enterprises and geographical distribution, and in order to realize the flexible execution of distributed flexible workflow engine, a distributed flexible workflow engine architecture based on web service is proposed and a flexible workflow model description method based on extended WSDL (Web Service Description Language) and BPEL4WS (Business Process Execution Language for Web Services) is proposed. A flexible workflow prototype system supporting engineering design process is implemented according to the proposed EDP management framework in Microsoft VS.Net 2005 environment. The framework is demonstrated by the application in an EDP of a MTO company, and it shows that the proposed framework can support the creative and dynamic process in an efficient way. Finally, the strengths and weakness of the framework as well as the prototype system is discussed based on the results of the evaluation, and the proposed areas of future work are given

Protection of Information and Communications in Distributed Systems and Microservices

Distributed systems have been a topic of discussion since the 1980s, but the adoption of microservices has raised number of system components considerably. With more decentralised distributed systems, new ways to handle authentication, authorisation and accounting (AAA) are needed, as well as ways to allow components to communicate between themselves securely. New standards and technologies have been created to deal with these new requirements and many of them have already found their way to most used systems and services globally. After covering AAA and separate access control models, we continue with ways to secure communications between two connecting parties, using Transport Layer Security (TLS) and other more specialised methods such as the Google-originated Secure Production Identity Framework for Everyone (SPIFFE). We also discuss X.509 certificates for ensuring identities. Next, both older time- tested and newer distributed AAA technologies are presented. After this, we are looking into communication between distributed components with both synchronous and asynchronous communication mechanisms, as well as into the publish/subscribe communication model popular with the rise of the streaming platform. This thesis also explores possibilities in securing communications between distributed endpoints and ways to handle AAA in a distributed context. This is showcased in a new software component that handles authentication through a separate identity endpoint using the OpenID Connect authentication protocol and stores identity in a Javascript object-notation formatted and cryptographically signed JSON Web Token, allowing stateless session handling as the token can be validated by checking its signature. This enables fast and scalable session management and identity handling for any distributed system

Automated ubiquitos delivery of generalised services in a open market

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Information Technology.Telecommunications networks, and the services delivered over those networks have become an integral part of most people's lives in the developed world. The range and availability of these services is increasing, however the management of services still lags well behind technical capability, providing unnecessary barriers to the adoption of available technology. The work described in this dissertation has a primary goal of enabling flexible, automated delivery of any telecommunication-based service. More specifically, a mechanism to solve the administrative problems in enabling end users to automatically establish service agreements for any available service, from any available provider. The aims of this work are to: 1. enable the description of service level agreements(SLA) for generalised telecommunication-based services, and 2. provide mechanisms by which those service level agreements may be managed. The term “generalised services” means that all service types are managed using a common framework and set of processes. To derive at a suitable service level agreement description language, the characteristics of telecommunication-based services are first analysed, along with considerations in delivering a service, including service quality, resource allocation and configuration, service pricing and service ubiquity. The current art in SLA description is studied and the requirements of an appropriate language are proposed. An ontological approach to SLA description is adopted, and an SLA description language is developed based on semantic web technologies. To develop the mechanisms for SLA management, the current art is first analysed, and a set of requirements for a suitable SLA management framework are proposed. These requirements are used to guide the design of a multi-agent SLA negotiation framework, including a detailed description of the communication model, framework processes, and social behaviour of the agents involved. Finally, the SLA description language and the negotiation framework are compared with the closest art, and are assessed against tightly argued criteria. An experimental framework and use cases are developed to explore an application of the proposed solution, and to validate completeness. The approach taken has led to the following two key contributions: 1. A set of formal ontologies that may be used to semantically describe secure service level agreements for any application domain. 2. A multi-agent system providing an open market where services can be discovered, participants identified, and negotiation performed using context specific mechanisms. The conclusions of the work are that an ontology-based SLA description language is appropriate for describing generalised SLAs, and that a distributed, agent based negotiation platform that is based on an open market and uses a minimal set of core processes with an extensible, ontology based communication mechanism is appropriate for managing service level agreements in a generalised, automated and ubiquitous way

A coupled modeling framework for sustainable watershed management in transboundary river basins

There is a growing recognition among water resource managers that sustainable watershed management needs to not only account for the diverse ways humans benefit from the environment, but also incorporate the impact of human actions on the natural system. Coupled natural– human system modeling through explicit modeling of both natural and human behavior can help reveal the reciprocal interactions and co-evolution of the natural and human systems. This study develops a spatially scalable, generalized agent-based modeling (ABM) framework consisting of a process-based semi-distributed hydrologic model (SWAT) and a decentralized water system model to simulate the impacts of water resource management decisions that affect the food–water–energy–environment (FWEE) nexus at a watershed scale. Agents within a river basin are geographically delineated based on both political and watershed boundaries and represent key stakeholders of ecosystem services. Agents decide about the priority across three primary water uses: food production, hydropower generation and ecosystem health within their geographical domains. Agents interact with the environment (streamflow) through the SWAT model and interact with other agents through a parameter representing willingness to cooperate. The innovative twoway coupling between the water system model and SWAT enables this framework to fully explore the feedback of human decisions on the environmental dynamics and vice versa. To support non-technical stakeholder interactions, a web-based user interface has been developed that allows for role-play and participatory modeling. The generalized ABM framework is also tested in two key transboundary river basins, the Mekong River basin in Southeast Asia and the Niger River basin in West Africa, where water uses for ecosystem health compete with growing human demands on food and energy resources. We present modeling results for crop production, energy generation and violation of ecohydrological indicators at both the agent and basin-wide levels to shed light on holistic FWEE management policies in these two basins

Policy-driven Security Management for Gateway-Oriented Reconfigurable Ecosystems

abstract: With the increasing user demand for low latency, elastic provisioning of computing resources coupled with ubiquitous and on-demand access to real-time data, cloud computing has emerged as a popular computing paradigm to meet growing user demands. However, with the introduction and rising use of wear- able technology and evolving uses of smart-phones, the concept of Internet of Things (IoT) has become a prevailing notion in the currently growing technology industry. Cisco Inc. has projected a data creation of approximately 403 Zetabytes (ZB) by 2018. The combination of bringing benign devices and connecting them to the web has resulted in exploding service and data aggregation requirements, thus requiring a new and innovative computing platform. This platform should have the capability to provide robust real-time data analytics and resource provisioning to clients, such as IoT users, on-demand. Such a computation model would need to function at the edge-of-the-network, forming a bridge between the large cloud data centers and the distributed connected devices. This research expands on the notion of bringing computational power to the edge- of-the-network, and then integrating it with the cloud computing paradigm whilst providing services to diverse IoT-based applications. This expansion is achieved through the establishment of a new computing model that serves as a platform for IoT-based devices to communicate with services in real-time. We name this paradigm as Gateway-Oriented Reconfigurable Ecosystem (GORE) computing. Finally, this thesis proposes and discusses the development of a policy management framework for accommodating our proposed computational paradigm. The policy framework is designed to serve both the hosted applications and the GORE paradigm by enabling them to function more efficiently. The goal of the framework is to ensure uninterrupted communication and service delivery between users and their applications.Dissertation/ThesisMasters Thesis Computer Science 201