7,238 research outputs found
Quality assessment technique for ubiquitous software and middleware
The new paradigm of computing or information systems is ubiquitous computing systems. The technology-oriented issues of ubiquitous computing systems have made researchers pay much attention to the feasibility study of the technologies rather than building quality assurance indices or guidelines. In this context, measuring quality is the key to developing high-quality ubiquitous computing products. For this reason, various quality models have been defined, adopted and enhanced over the years, for example, the need for one recognised standard quality model (ISO/IEC 9126) is the result of a consensus for a software quality model on three levels: characteristics, sub-characteristics, and metrics. However, it is very much unlikely that this scheme will be directly applicable to ubiquitous computing environments which are considerably different to conventional software, trailing a big concern which is being given to reformulate existing methods, and especially to elaborate new assessment techniques for ubiquitous computing environments. This paper selects appropriate quality characteristics for the ubiquitous computing environment, which can be used as the quality target for both ubiquitous computing product evaluation processes ad development processes. Further, each of the quality characteristics has been expanded with evaluation questions and metrics, in some cases with measures. In addition, this quality model has been applied to the industrial setting of the ubiquitous computing environment. These have revealed that while the approach was sound, there are some parts to be more developed in the future
Middleware-based Database Replication: The Gaps between Theory and Practice
The need for high availability and performance in data management systems has
been fueling a long running interest in database replication from both academia
and industry. However, academic groups often attack replication problems in
isolation, overlooking the need for completeness in their solutions, while
commercial teams take a holistic approach that often misses opportunities for
fundamental innovation. This has created over time a gap between academic
research and industrial practice.
This paper aims to characterize the gap along three axes: performance,
availability, and administration. We build on our own experience developing and
deploying replication systems in commercial and academic settings, as well as
on a large body of prior related work. We sift through representative examples
from the last decade of open-source, academic, and commercial database
replication systems and combine this material with case studies from real
systems deployed at Fortune 500 customers. We propose two agendas, one for
academic research and one for industrial R&D, which we believe can bridge the
gap within 5-10 years. This way, we hope to both motivate and help researchers
in making the theory and practice of middleware-based database replication more
relevant to each other.Comment: 14 pages. Appears in Proc. ACM SIGMOD International Conference on
Management of Data, Vancouver, Canada, June 200
The simplicity project: easing the burden of using complex and heterogeneous ICT devices and services
As of today, to exploit the variety of different "services", users need to configure each of their devices by using different procedures and need to explicitly select among heterogeneous access technologies and protocols. In addition to that, users are authenticated and charged by different means. The lack of implicit human computer interaction, context-awareness and standardisation places an enormous burden of complexity on the shoulders of the final users. The IST-Simplicity project aims at leveraging such problems by: i) automatically creating and customizing a user communication space; ii) adapting services to user terminal characteristics and to users preferences; iii) orchestrating network capabilities. The aim of this paper is to present the technical framework of the IST-Simplicity project. This paper is a thorough analysis and qualitative evaluation of the different technologies, standards and works presented in the literature related to the Simplicity system to be developed
Blackboard Rules for Coordinating Context-aware Applications in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks
Thanks to improvements in wireless communication technologies and increasing
computing power in hand-held devices, mobile ad hoc networks are becoming an
ever-more present reality. Coordination languages are expected to become
important means in supporting this type of interaction. To this extent we argue
the interest of the Bach coordination language as a middleware that can handle
and react to context changes as well as cope with unpredictable physical
interruptions that occur in opportunistic network connections. More concretely,
our proposal is based on blackboard rules that model declaratively the actions
to be taken once the blackboard content reaches a predefined state, but also
that manage the engagement and disengagement of hosts and transient sharing of
blackboards. The idea of reactiveness has already been introduced in previous
work, but as will be appreciated by the reader, this article presents a new
perspective, more focused on a declarative setting.Comment: In Proceedings FOCLASA 2012, arXiv:1208.432
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