SCRAM: Software configuration and management for the LHC Computing Grid project

Recently SCRAM (Software Configuration And Management) has been adopted by the applications area of the LHC computing grid project as baseline configuration management and build support infrastructure tool. SCRAM is a software engineering tool, that supports the configuration management and management processes for software development. It resolves the issues of configuration definition, assembly break-down, build, project organization, run-time environment, installation, distribution, deployment, and source code distribution. It was designed with a focus on supporting a distributed, multi-project development work-model. We will describe the underlying technology, and the solutions SCRAM offers to the above software engineering processes, while taking a users view of the system under configuration management.Comment: Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics, La Jolla, California, March 24-28, 2003 1 tar fil

Generation of feasible deployment configuration alternatives for Data Distribution Service based systems

Data distribution service (DDS) has been defined by the OMG to provide a standard data-centric publish-subscribe programming model and specification for distributed systems. DDS has been applied for the development of high performance distributed systems such as in the defense, finance, automotive, and simulation domains. To support the analysis and design of a DDS-based distributed system, the OMG has proposed the DDS UML Profile. A DDS-based system usually consists of multiple participant applications each of which has different responsibilities in the system. These participants can be allocated in different ways to the available resources, which leads to different configuration alternatives. Usually, each configuration alternative will perform differently with respect to the execution and communication cost of the overall system. In general, the deployment configuration is selected manually based on expert knowledge. This approach is suitable for small to medium scale applications but for larger applications this is not tractable. In this paper, we provide a systematic approach for deriving feasible deployment alternatives based on the application design and the available physical resources. The application design includes the design for DDS topics, publishers and subscribers. For supporting the application design, we propose a DDS UML profile. Based on the application design and the physical resources, the feasible deployment alternatives can be algorithmically derived and automatically generated using the developed tools. We illustrate the approach for deriving feasible deployment alternatives of smart city parking system

An Architectural Framework for Performance Analysis: Supporting the Design, Configuration, and Control of DIS /HLA Simulations

Technology advances are providing greater capabilities for most distributed computing environments. However, the advances in capabilities are paralleled by progressively increasing amounts of system complexity. In many instances, this complexity can lead to a lack of understanding regarding bottlenecks in run-time performance of distributed applications. This is especially true in the domain of distributed simulations where a myriad of enabling technologies are used as building blocks to provide large-scale, geographically disperse, dynamic virtual worlds. Persons responsible for the design, configuration, and control of distributed simulations need to understand the impact of decisions made regarding the allocation and use of the logical and physical resources that comprise a distributed simulation environment and how they effect run-time performance. Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) and High Level Architecture (HLA) simulation applications historically provide some of the most demanding distributed computing environments in terms of performance, and as such have a justified need for performance information sufficient to support decision-makers trying to improve system behavior. This research addresses two fundamental questions: (1) Is there an analysis framework suitable for characterizing DIS and HLA simulation performance? and (2) what kind of mechanism can be used to adequately monitor, measure, and collect performance data to support different performance analysis objectives for DIS and HLA simulations? This thesis presents a unified, architectural framework for DIS and HLA simulations, provides details on a performance monitoring system, and shows its effectiveness through a series of use cases that include practical applications of the framework to support real-world U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) programs. The thesis also discusses the robustness of the constructed framework and its applicability to performance analysis of more general distributed computing applications

Platform-independent Dynamic Reconfiguration of Distributed Applications

The aim of dynamic reconfiguration is to allow a system to evolve incrementally from one configuration to another at run-time, without restarting it or taking it offline. In recent years, support for transparent dynamic reconfiguration has been added to middleware platforms, shifting the complexity required to enable dynamic reconfiguration to the supporting infrastructure. These approaches to dynamic reconfiguration are mostly platform-specific and depend on particular implementation approaches suitable for particular platforms. In this paper, we propose an approach to dynamic reconfiguration of distributed applications that is suitable for application implemented on top of different platforms. This approach supports a platform-independent view of an application that profits from reconfiguration transparency. In this view, requirements on the ability to reconfigure components are expressed in an abstract manner. These requirements are then satisfied by platform-specific realizations

Visual Specification of Interprocess and Intraprocess Communication

We present a visual specification language for constructing distributed applications and their direct manipulation graphical user interfaces. Each distributed application consists of a collection of independent modules and a configuration of logical connections that define communication among the data interfaces of the modules. Our specification language uses a single visual mechanism that allows end-users to define interprocess communication among distributed modules and to define intraprocess communication among objects within a module. This seamless specification provides a general encapsulation/abstraction mechanism and is designed to support dynamic change to the communication structure. User interfaces are completely decoupled from the module(s) they control

SALOON, a Platform for Selecting and Configuring Cloud Environments

International audienceCloud computing has recently emerged as a major trend in distributed computing. This layered model enables the configuration of many computing resources that can be provisioned to support the deployment of applications, provided as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). Many cloud providers, either at Infrastructure (IaaS) or Platform (PaaS) level, propose different services and pricing models. We propose SALOON, a platform for selecting and configuring cloud environments