An active-architecture approach to COTS integration

Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software products are increasingly used as standard components within integrated information systems. This creates challenges since both their developers and source code are not usually available, and the ongoing development of COTS cannot be predicted. The ArchWare Framework approach recognises COTS products as part of the ambient environment of an information system and therefore an important part of development is incorporating COTS as effective system components. This integration of COTS components, and the composition of components, is captured by an active architecture model which changes as the system evolves. Indeed the architecture modelling language used enables it to express the monitoring and evolution of a system. This active architecture model is structured using control system principles. By modelling both integration and evolution it can guide the system’s response to both predicted and emergent changes that arise from the use of COTS products.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Adaptive object-modeling : patterns, tools and applications

Tese de Programa Doutoral. Informática. Universidade do Porto. Faculdade de Engenharia. 201

LEESA: Embedding Strategic and XPath-Like Object Structure Traversals in C++

Abstract. Traversals of heterogeneous object structures are the most common operations in schema-first applications where the three key is-sues are (1) separation of traversal specifications from type-specific ac-tions, (2) expressiveness and reusability of traversal specifications, and (3) supporting structure-shy traversal specifications that require min-imal adaptation in the face of schema evolution. This paper presents Language for Embedded quEry and traverSAl (LEESA), which pro-vides a generative programming approach to address the above issues. LEESA is an object structure traversal language embedded in C++. Using C++ templates, LEESA combines the expressiveness of XPath’s axes-oriented traversal notation with the genericity and programmabil-ity of Strategic Programming. LEESA uses the object structure meta-information to statically optimize the traversals and check their compat-ibility against the schema. Moreover, a key usability issue of domain-specific error reporting in embedded DSL languages has been addressed in LEESA through a novel application of Concepts, which is an upcoming C++ standard (C++0x) feature. We present a quantitative evaluation of LEESA illustrating how it can significantly reduce the development efforts of schema-first applications.