An Autonomic Cross-Platform Operating Environment for On-Demand Internet Computing

The Internet has evolved into a global and ubiquitous communication medium interconnecting powerful application servers, diverse desktop computers and mobile notebooks. Along with recent developments in computer technology, such as the convergence of computing and communication devices, the way how people use computers and the Internet has changed people´s working habits and has led to new application scenarios. On the one hand, pervasive computing, ubiquitous computing and nomadic computing become more and more important since different computing devices like PDAs and notebooks may be used concurrently and alternately, e.g. while the user is on the move. On the other hand, the ubiquitous availability and pervasive interconnection of computing systems have fostered various trends towards the dynamic utilization and spontaneous collaboration of available remote computing resources, which are addressed by approaches like utility computing, grid computing, cloud computing and public computing. From a general point of view, the common objective of this development is the use of Internet applications on demand, i.e. applications that are not installed in advance by a platform administrator but are dynamically deployed and run as they are requested by the application user. The heterogeneous and unmanaged nature of the Internet represents a major challenge for the on demand use of custom Internet applications across heterogeneous hardware platforms, operating systems and network environments. Promising remedies are autonomic computing systems that are supposed to maintain themselves without particular user or application intervention. In this thesis, an Autonomic Cross-Platform Operating Environment (ACOE) is presented that supports On Demand Internet Computing (ODIC), such as dynamic application composition and ad hoc execution migration. The approach is based on an integration middleware called crossware that does not replace existing middleware but operates as a self-managing mediator between diverse application requirements and heterogeneous platform configurations. A Java implementation of the Crossware Development Kit (XDK) is presented, followed by the description of the On Demand Internet Computing System (ODIX). The feasibility of the approach is shown by the implementation of an Internet Application Workbench, an Internet Application Factory and an Internet Peer Federation. They illustrate the use of ODIX to support local, remote and distributed ODIC, respectively. Finally, the suitability of the approach is discussed with respect to the support of ODIC

Customizing an Open Source Web Portal Framework in a Business Context : Integrating Participatory Design with an Agile Approach

In this thesis, we have investigated how an open source web portal can be used in a business context. This investigation required development of components for a web portal to meet the company’s needs. The motivation for this thesis was to design a web portal to organize the rapid growth of information and to improve the communication both internally and externally. The company that we collaborated with experienced expansion of the working staff, as well as in the customer base. Because the requirements for the web portal were uncertain, the development demanded a lot of communication and collaboration between us, as developers, and the company. With help from the Agile methodology and Participatory Design we were able to clarify the requirements and to overcome the problems during the development. We have especially utilized Agile’s Extreme Programming method as the developing technique. We argue that by applying this method in the given context, we attained the necessary foundation needed for the successful realization of the project. In addition, in situations where we supplemented it with techniques from Participatory Design; we gained a better understanding of the components to be made

A reutilização de requisitos no desenvolvimento e adaptação de produtos de software

Tese de doutoramento. Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores. 2006. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Port

COVER FEATURE Accelerating Development with Agent Components

This analytical survey of agent components reveals that the technology will likely form the foundation for flexible, intelligent, Web-based enterprise application systems. As the demand for more flexible, adaptable, extensible, and robust Web-based enterprise application systems accelerates, adopting new software engineering methodologies and development strategies becomes critical. These strategies must support the construction of enterprise software systems that assemble highly flexible software components written at different times by various developers. Traditional software development strategies and engineering methodologies, which require development of software systems from scratch, fall short in this regard