Constructing Domain-Specific Component Frameworks through Architecture Refinement

Acceptance rate: 38%International audienceRecently, a plethora of domain-specific component frameworks (DSCF) emerges. Although the current trend emphasizes generative programming methods as cornerstones of software development, they are commonly applied in a costly, ad-hoc fashion. However, we believe that DSCFs share the same subset of concepts and patterns. In this paper we propose two contributions to DSCF development. First, we propose DomainComponents --- a high-level abstraction to capture semantics of domain concepts provided by containers, and we identify patterns facilitating their implementation. Second, we develop a generic framework that automatically generates implementation of DomainComponents semantics, thus addressing domain-specific services with one unified approach. To evaluate benefits of our approach we have conducted several case studies that span different domain-specific challenges

An Aspect-Oriented Framework for Weaving Domain-Specific Concerns into Component-Based Systems

International audienceSoftware components are used in various application domains, and many component models and frameworks have been proposed to fulfill domain-specific requirements. The general trend followed by these approaches is to provide ad-hoc models and tools for capturing these requirements and for implementing their support within dedicated runtime platforms, limited to features of the targeted domain. The challenge is then to propose more flexible solutions, where components reuse is domain agnostic. In this article, we present a framework supporting compositional construction and development of applications that must meet various extra-functional/domain-specific requirements. The key points of our contribution are: i) We target development of component-oriented applications where extra-functional requirements are expressed as annotations on the units of composition in the application's architecture. ii) These annotations are implemented as open and extensible component-based containers, achieving full separation of functional and extra-functional concerns. iii) Finally, the full machinery is implemented using the Aspect-Oriented Programming paradigm. We validate our approach with two case studies: the first is related to real-time and embedded applications, while the second refers to the distributed context-aware middleware domain

Techniques and Patterns for Safe and Efficient Real-Time Middleware

Over 90 percent of all microprocessors are now used for real-time and embedded applications. The behavior of these applications is often constrained by the physical world. It is therefore important to devise higher-level languages and middleware that meet conventional functional requirements, as well as dependably and productively enforce real-time constraints. Real-Time Java is emerging as a safe, real-time environment. In this thesis we use it as our experimentation platform; however, our findings are easily adapted to other similar platforms. This thesis provides the following contributions to the study of safe and efficient real-time middleware. First, it identifies potential bottlenecks and problem with respect to guaranteeing real-time performance in middleware. Second, it presents a series of techniques and patterns that allow the design and implementation of safe, predictable, and highly efficient real-time middleware. Third, it provides a set of architectural and design patterns that application developers can use when designing real-time systems. Finally, it provides a methodology for evaluating the merits and benefits of real-time middleware. Empirical results are presented using that methodology for the techniques presented in this thesis. The methodology helps compare the performance and predictability of general, real-time middleware platforms

Software Engineering of Component-Based Systems-of-Systems: A Reference Framework

CORE A.International audienceSystems-of-Systems (SoS) are complex infrastructures, which are characterized by a wide diversity of technologies and requirements imposed by the domain(s) they target. In this context, the software engineering community has been focusing on assisting the developers by providing them domain-specific languages, component-based software engineering frameworks and tools to leverage on the design and the development of such systems. However, the adoption of such approaches often prevents developers from combining several domains, which is a strong requirement in the context of SoS. Furthermore, only little attention has been paid to the definition of a modular toolset and an extensible runtime infrastructure for deploying and executing SoS. In this paper, we therefore propose a reference framework to leverage on the software engineering of SoS. Our reference framework has been validated on the development of two platforms, namely Hulotte and FraSCAti, to demonstrate that the resulting complexity is isolated in the core toolset, while the development of domain-specific extensions is leveraged and simplified by clearly identified abstractions

A Component Framework for Java-based Real-time Embedded Systems

Rank (CORE): A.International audienceThe Real-Time Specification for Java (RTSJ) is becoming a popular choice in the world of real-time and embedded programming. However, RTSJ introduces many non-intuitive rules and restrictions which prevent its wide adoption. Moreover, current state-of-the-art frameworks usually fail to alleviate the development process into higher layers of the software development life-cycle. In this paper we extend our philosophy that RTSJ concepts need to be considered at early stages of software development, postulated in our prior work, in a framework that provides continuum between the design and implementation process. A component model designed specially for RTSJ serves here as a cornerstone. As the first contribution of this work, we propose a development process where RTSJ concepts are manipulated independently from functional aspects. Second, we mitigate complexities of RTSJ-development by automatically generating execution infrastructure where real-time concerns are transparently managed. We thus allow developers to create systems for variously constrained real-time and embedded environments. Performed benchmarks show that the overhead of the framework is minimal in comparison to manually written object-oriented approach, while providing more extensive functionality. Finally, the framework is designed with the stress on dynamic adaptability of target systems, a property we envisage as a fundamental in an upcoming era of massively developed real-time systems

Software Engineering of Component-Based Systems-of-Systems: A Reference Framework

CORE A.International audienceSystems-of-Systems (SoS) are complex infrastructures, which are characterized by a wide diversity of technologies and requirements imposed by the domain(s) they target. In this context, the software engineering community has been focusing on assisting the developers by providing them domain-specific languages, component-based software engineering frameworks and tools to leverage on the design and the development of such systems. However, the adoption of such approaches often prevents developers from combining several domains, which is a strong requirement in the context of SoS. Furthermore, only little attention has been paid to the definition of a modular toolset and an extensible runtime infrastructure for deploying and executing SoS. In this paper, we therefore propose a reference framework to leverage on the software engineering of SoS. Our reference framework has been validated on the development of two platforms, namely Hulotte and FraSCAti, to demonstrate that the resulting complexity is isolated in the core toolset, while the development of domain-specific extensions is leveraged and simplified by clearly identified abstractions

The COMQUAD Component Container Architecture and Contract Negotiation

Component-based applications require runtime support to be able to guarantee non-functional properties. This report proposes an architecture for a real-time-capable, component-based runtime environment, which allows to separate non-functional and functional concerns in component-based software development. The architecture is presented with particular focus on three key issues: the conceptual architecture, an approach including implementation issues for splitting the runtime environment into a real-time-capable and a real-time-incapable part, and details of contract negotiation. The latter includes selecting component implementations for instantiantion based on their non-functional properties