Applying Software Product Lines to Build Autonomic Pervasive Systems

In this Master Thesis, we have proposed a model-driven Software Product Line (SPL) for developing autonomic pervasive systems. The work focusses on reusing the Variability knowledge from the SPL design to the SPL products. This Variability knowledge enables SPL products to deal with adaptation scenarios (evolution and involution) in an autonomic way.Cetina Englada, C. (2008). Applying Software Product Lines to Build Autonomic Pervasive Systems. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/12447Archivo delegad

ICSEA 2022: the seventeenth international conference on software engineering advances

The Seventeenth International Conference on Software Engineering Advances (ICSEA 2022), held between October 16th and October 20th, 2022, continued a series of events covering a broad spectrum of software-related topics. The conference covered fundamentals on designing, implementing, testing, validating and maintaining various kinds of software. Several tracks were proposed to treat the topics from theory to practice, in terms of methodologies, design, implementation, testing, use cases, tools, and lessons learned. The conference topics covered classical and advanced methodologies, open source, agile software, as well as software deployment and software economics and education. Other advanced aspects are related to on-time practical aspects, such as run-time vulnerability checking, rejuvenation process, updates partial or temporary feature deprecation, software deployment and configuration, and on-line software updates. These aspects trigger implications related to patenting, licensing, engineering education, new ways for software adoption and improvement, and ultimately, to software knowledge management. There are many advanced applications requiring robust, safe, and secure software: disaster recovery applications, vehicular systems, biomedical-related software, biometrics related software, mission critical software, E-health related software, crisis-situation software. These applications require appropriate software engineering techniques, metrics and formalisms, such as, software reuse, appropriate software quality metrics, composition and integration, consistency checking, model checking, provers and reasoning. The nature of research in software varies slightly with the specific discipline researchers work in, yet there is much common ground and room for a sharing of best practice, frameworks, tools, languages and methodologies. Despite the number of experts we have available, little work is done at the meta level, that is examining how we go about our research, and how this process can be improved. There are questions related to the choice of programming language, IDEs and documentation styles and standard. Reuse can be of great benefit to research projects yet reuse of prior research projects introduces special problems that need to be mitigated. The research environment is a mix of creativity and systematic approach which leads to a creative tension that needs to be managed or at least monitored. Much of the coding in any university is undertaken by research students or young researchers. Issues of skills training, development and quality control can have significant effects on an entire department. In an industrial research setting, the environment is not quite that of industry as a whole, nor does it follow the pattern set by the university. The unique approaches and issues of industrial research may hold lessons for researchers in other domains. We take here the opportunity to warmly thank all the members of the ICSEA 2022 technical program committee, as well as all the reviewers. The creation of such a high-quality conference program would not have been possible without their involvement. We also kindly thank all the authors who dedicated much of their time and effort to contribute to ICSEA 2022. We truly believe that, thanks to all these efforts, the final conference program consisted of top-quality contributions. We also thank the members of the ICSEA 2022 organizing committee for their help in handling the logistics of this event. We hope that ICSEA 2022 was a successful international forum for the exchange of ideas and results between academia and industry and for the promotion of progress in software engineering advances

Feature-based generation of pervasive systems architectures utilizing software product line concepts

As the need for pervasive systems tends to increase and to dominate the computing discipline, software engineering approaches must evolve at a similar pace to facilitate the construction of such systems in an efficient manner. In this thesis, we provide a vision of a framework that will help in the construction of software product lines for pervasive systems by devising an approach to automatically generate architectures for this domain. Using this framework, designers of pervasive systems will be able to select a set of desired system features, and the framework will automatically generate architectures that support the presence of these features. Our approach will not compromise the quality of the architecture especially as we have verified that by comparing the generated architectures to those manually designed by human architects. As an initial step, and in order to determine the most commonly required features that comprise the widely most known pervasive systems, we surveyed more than fifty existing architectures for pervasive systems in various domains. We captured the most essential features along with the commonalities and variabilities between them. The features were categorized according to the domain and the environment that they target. Those categories are: General pervasive systems, domain-specific, privacy, bridging, fault-tolerance and context-awareness. We coupled the identified features with well-designed components, and connected the components based on the initial features selected by a system designer to generate an architecture. We evaluated our generated architectures against architectures designed by human architects. When metrics such as coupling, cohesion, complexity, reusability, adaptability, modularity, modifiability, packing density, and average interaction density were used to test our framework, our generated architectures were found comparable, if not better than the human generated architectures

Achieving Autonomic Computing through the Use of Variability Models at Run-time

Increasingly, software needs to dynamically adapt its behavior at run-time in response to changing conditions in the supporting computing infrastructure and in the surrounding physical environment. Adaptability is emerging as a necessary underlying capability, particularly for highly dynamic systems such as context-aware or ubiquitous systems. By automating tasks such as installation, adaptation, or healing, Autonomic Computing envisions computing environments that evolve without the need for human intervention. Even though there is a fair amount of work on architectures and their theoretical design, Autonomic Computing was criticised as being a \hype topic" because very little of it has been implemented fully. Furthermore, given that the autonomic system must change states at runtime and that some of those states may emerge and are much less deterministic, there is a great challenge to provide new guidelines, techniques and tools to help autonomic system development. This thesis shows that building up on the central ideas of Model Driven Development (Models as rst-order citizens) and Software Product Lines (Variability Management) can play a signi cant role as we move towards implementing the key self-management properties associated with autonomic computing. The presented approach encompass systems that are capable of modifying their own behavior with respect to changes in their operating environment, by using variability models as if they were the policies that drive the system's autonomic recon guration at runtime. Under a set of recon guration commands, the components that make up the architecture dynamically cooperate to change the con guration of the architecture to a new con guration. This work also provides the implementation of a Model-Based Recon guration Engine (MoRE) to blend the above ideas. Given a context event, MoRE queries the variability models to determine how the system should evolve, and then it provides the mechanisms for modifying the system.Cetina Englada, C. (2010). Achieving Autonomic Computing through the Use of Variability Models at Run-time [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/7484Palanci

Unified GUI adaptation in Dynamic Software Product Lines

In the modern world of mobile computing and ubiquitous technology, society is able to interact with technology in new and fascinating ways. To help provide an improved user experience, mobile software should be able to adapt itself to suit the user. By monitoring context information based on the environment and user, the application can better meet the dynamic requirements of the user. Similarly, it is noticeable that programs can require different static changes to suit static requirements. This program commonality and variability can benefit from the use of Software Product Line Engineering, reusing artefacts over a set of similar programs, called a Software Product Line (SPL). Historically, SPLs are limited to handling static compile time adaptations. Dynamic Software Product Lines (DSPL) however, allow for the program configuration to change at runtime, allow for compile time and runtime adaptation to be developed in a single unified approach. While currently DSPLs provide methods for dealing with program logic adaptations, variability in the Graphical User Interface (GUI) has largely been neglected. Due to this, depending on the intended time to apply GUI adaptation, different approaches are required. The main goal of this work is to extend a unified representation of variability to the GUI, whereby GUI adaptation can be applied at compile time and at runtime. In this thesis, an approach to handling GUI adaptation within DSPLs, providing a unified representation of GUI variability is presented. The approach is based on Feature-Oriented Programming (FOP), enabling developers to implement GUI adaptation along with program logic in feature modules. This approach is applied to Document-Oriented GUIs, also known as GUI description languages. In addition to GUI unification, we present an approach to unifying context and feature modelling, and handling context dynamically at runtime, as features of the DSPL. This unification can allow for more dynamic and self-aware context acquisition. To validate our approach, we implemented tool support and middleware prototypes. These different artefacts are then tested using a combination of scenarios and scalability tests. This combination first helps demonstrate the versatility and its relevance of the different approach aspects. It further brings insight into how the approach scales with DSPL size

Uma solução de implantação auto-adaptativa para plataformas Android

Orientador: Cecília Mary Fischer RubiraDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de ComputaçãoResumo: Os dispositivos móveis, hoje em dia, fornecem recursos semelhantes aos de um computador pessoal de uma década atrás, permitindo o desenvolvimento de aplicações complexas. Consequentemente, essas aplicações móveis podem exigir tolerar falhas em tempo de execução. No entanto, a maioria das aplicações móveis de hoje são implantados usando configurações estáticas, tornando difícil tolerar falhas durante a sua execução. Nós propomos uma infraestrutura de implantação auto-adaptativa para lidar com este problema. A nossa solução oferece um circuito autônomo que administra o modelo de configuração atual da aplicação usando um modelo de características dinâmico associado com o modelo arquitetônico da mesma. Em tempo de execução, de acordo com a seleção dinâmica de características, o modelo arquitetônico implantado na plataforma se re-configura para fornecer uma nova solução. Uma aplicação Android foi implementada utilizando a solução proposta, e durante sua execução, a disponibilidade de serviços foi alterada, de tal forma que sua configuração corrente foi dinamicamente alterada para tolerar a indisponibilidade dos serviçosAbstract: Mobile devices, nowadays, provide similar capabilities as a personal computer of a decade ago, allowing the development of complex applications. Consequently, these mobile applications may require tolerating failures at runtime. However, most of the today¿s mobile applications are deployed using static configurations, making difficult to tolerate failure during their execution. We propose an adaptive deployment infrastructure to deal with this problem. Our solution offers an autonomic loop that manages the current configuration model of the application using a dynamic feature model associated with the architectural model. During runtime, according to the dynamic feature selection, the deployed architectural model can be modified to provide a new deployment solution. An Android application was implemented using the proposed solution, and during its execution, the services availability was altered so that its current configuration was changed dynamically in order to tolerate the unavailability of servicesMestradoCiência da ComputaçãoMestre em Ciência da Computação131830/2013-9CNP

Run-time Variability with Roles

Adaptability is an intrinsic property of software systems that require adaptation to cope with dynamically changing environments. Achieving adaptability is challenging. Variability is a key solution as it enables a software system to change its behavior which corresponds to a specific need. The abstraction of variability is to manage variants, which are dynamic parts to be composed to the base system. Run-time variability realizes these variant compositions dynamically at run time to enable adaptation. Adaptation, relying on variants specified at build time, is called anticipated adaptation, which allows the system behavior to change with respect to a set of predefined execution environments. This implies the inability to solve practical problems in which the execution environment is not completely fixed and often unknown until run time. Enabling unanticipated adaptation, which allows variants to be dynamically added at run time, alleviates this inability, but it holds several implications yielding system instability such as inconsistency and run-time failures. Adaptation should be performed only when a system reaches a consistent state to avoid inconsistency. Inconsistency is an effect of adaptation happening when the system changes the state and behavior while a series of methods is still invoking. A software bug is another source of system instability. It often appears in a variant composition and is brought to the system during adaptation. The problem is even more critical for unanticipated adaptation as the system has no prior knowledge of the new variants. This dissertation aims to achieve anticipated and unanticipated adaptation. In achieving adaptation, the issues of inconsistency and software failures, which may happen as a consequence of run-time adaptation, are evidently addressed as well. Roles encapsulate dynamic behavior used to adapt players representing the base system, which is the rationale to select roles as the software system's variants. Based on the role concept, this dissertation presents three mechanisms to comprehensively address adaptation. First, a dynamic instance binding mechanism is proposed to loosely bind players and roles. Dynamic binding of roles enables anticipated and unanticipated adaptation. Second, an object-level tranquility mechanism is proposed to avoid inconsistency by allowing a player object to adapt only when its consistent state is reached. Last, a rollback recovery mechanism is proposed as a proactive mechanism to embrace and handle failures resulting from a defective composition of variants. A checkpoint of a system configuration is created before adaptation. If a specialized bug sensor detects a failure, the system rolls back to the most recent checkpoint. These mechanisms are integrated into a role-based runtime, called LyRT. LyRT was validated with three case studies to demonstrate the practical feasibility. This validation showed that LyRT is more advanced than the existing variability approaches with respect to adaptation due to its consistency control and failure handling. Besides, several benchmarks were set up to quantify the overhead of LyRT concerning the execution time of adaptation. The results revealed that the overhead introduced to achieve anticipated and unanticipated adaptation to be small enough for practical use in adaptive software systems. Thus, LyRT is suitable for adaptive software systems that frequently require the adaptation of large sets of objects

Real-Time Processing Library for Open-Source Hardware Biomedical Sensors

Applications involving data acquisition from sensors need samples at a preset frequency rate, the filtering out of noise and/or analysis of certain frequency components. We propose a novel software architecture based on open-software hardware platforms which allows programmers to create data streams from input channels and easily implement filters and frequency analysis objects. The performances of the different classes given in the size of memory allocated and execution time (number of clock cycles) were analyzed in the low-cost platform Arduino Genuino. In addition, 11 people took part in an experiment in which they had to implement several exercises and complete a usability test. Sampling rates under 250 Hz (typical for many biomedical applications) makes it feasible to implement filters, sliding windows and Fourier analysis, operating in real time. Participants rated software usability at 70.2 out of 100 and the ease of use when implementing several signal processing applications was rated at just over 4.4 out of 5. Participants showed their intention of using this software because it was percieved as useful and very easy to use. The performances of the library showed that it may be appropriate for implementing small biomedical real-time applications or for human movement monitoring, even in a simple open-source hardware device like Arduino Genuino. The general perception about this library is that it is easy to use and intuitive

Optimizing mobile applications by exploiting variability models at runtime

El servicio de reconfiguración dinámica genera y despliega configuraciones de la aplicación optimizadas para el contexto de la ejecución. Para la generación eficiente de estas configuraciones se han definido los algoritmos genéticos DAGAME (mono-objetivo) y MO-DAGAME (multi-objetivo). Ambos algoritmos han sido evaluados, obteniendo buenos resultados con respecto al tiempo de ejecución y a la calidad de las configuraciones generadas. Fecha de lectura de Tesis Doctoral: 18 de diciembre 2018.Los teléfonos móviles inteligentes son una herramienta indispensable en nuestra vida cotidiana. Son dispositivos con los que podemos ejecutar aplicaciones y tareas complejas en cualquier lugar y en cualquier momento. Estas aplicaciones están fuertemente relacionadas con su contexto (e.g., localización, recursos disponibles, etc.) y los requisitos del usuario cambian cuando lo hace el contexto en el que se ejecutan. Por lo tanto, desarrollar aplicaciones que se adaptan al contexto es fundamental para satisfacer dichos requisitos y, para lograrlo, es necesario proporcionar mecanismos de reconfiguración dinámica. Un enfoque ampliamente aceptado para gestionar la variabilidad de las aplicaciones en tiempo de ejecución son las Líneas de Producto Software Dinámicas (DSPLs). Por otro lado, otro paradigma ampliamente aceptado en la comunidad de los sistemas distributidos es el de la Computación Autónoma (CA), cuyo principal objetivo es dotar a los sistemas distribuidos de capacidades de auto-gestión. Esta tesis explora la aplicación de las DSPLs y la CA al desarrollo de aplicaciones para dispositivos móviles que pueden ser reconfiguradas en tiempo de ejecución en función de su contexto. Sus contribuciones cubren tanto el diseño de la DSPL como el desarrollo de mecanismos de reconfiguración dinámica. Con respecto al diseño de la DSPL, se han propuesto dos alternativas diferentes para la especificación de la arquitectura software y la variabilidad. Por un lado, un mecanismo basado en el uso de perfiles UML y herramientas para modelos de características. Por otro lado, un mecanismo basado en el uso del lenguaje CVL para el modelado de la variabilidad. Para la adaptación de las aplicaciones en tiempo de ejecución se ha definido un middleware que incluye servicios de monitorización del contexto y de reconfiguración dinámica

Une approche basée sur les lignes de produits logiciels pour la configuration et adaptation des environments multi-nuages

Cloud computing is characterized by a model in which computing resources are delivered as services in a pay-as-you-go manner, which eliminates the need for upfront investments, reducing the time to market and opportunity costs. Despite its benefits, cloud computing brought new concerns about provider dependence and data confidentiality, which further led to a growing trend on consuming resources from multiple clouds. However, building multi-cloud systems is still very challenging and time consuming due to the heterogeneity across cloud providers' offerings and the high-variability in the configuration of cloud providers. This variability is expressed by the large number of available services and the many different ways in which they can be combined and configured. In order to ensure correct setup of a multi-cloud environment, developers must be aware of service offerings and configuration options from multiple cloud providers.To tackle this problem, this thesis proposes a software product line-based approach for managing the variability in cloud environments in order to automate the setup and adaptation of multi-cloud environments. The contributions of this thesis enable to automatically generate a configuration or reconfiguration plan for a multi-cloud environment from a description of its requirements. The conducted experiments aim to assess the impact of the approach on the automated analysis of feature models and the feasibility of the approach to automate the setup and adaptation of multi-cloud environments.Le cloud computing est caractérisé par un modèle dans lequel les ressources informatiques sont fournies en tant qu'un service d'utilité, ce qui élimine le besoin de grands investissements initiaux. Malgré ses avantages, le cloud computing a suscité de nouvelles inquiétudes concernant la dépendance des fournisseurs et la confidentialité des données, ce qui a conduit à l'émergence des approches multi-cloud. Cependant, la construction de systèmes multi-cloud est toujours difficile en raison de l'hétérogénéité entre les offres des fournisseurs de cloud et de la grande variabilité dans la configuration des fournisseurs de cloud. Cette variabilité est caractérisé par le grand nombre de services disponibles et les nombreuses façons différentes de les combiner et de les configurer. Afin de garantir la configuration correcte d'un environnement multi-cloud, les développeurs doivent connaître les offres de services et les options de configuration de plusieurs fournisseurs de cloud.Pour traiter ce problème, cette thèse propose une approche basée sur les lignes de produits logiciels pour gérer la variabilité dans les cloud afin d'automatiser la configuration et l'adaptation des environnements multi-cloud. Les contributions de cette thèse permettent de générer automatiquement un plan de configuration ou de reconfiguration pour un environnement multi-cloud à partir d'une description de ses exigences. Les expérimentations menées visent à évaluer l'impact de l'approche sur l'analyse automatisée des modèles de caractéristiques et la faisabilité de l'approche pour automatiser la configuration et l'adaptation des environnements multi-nuages