Toward Sequentializing Overparallelized Protocol Code

In our ongoing work, we use constraint automata to compile protocol specifications expressed as Reo connectors into efficient executable code, e.g., in C. We have by now studied this automata based compilation approach rather well, and have devised effective solutions to some of its problems. Because our approach is based on constraint automata, the approach, its problems, and our solutions are in fact useful and relevant well beyond the specific case of compiling Reo. In this short paper, we identify and analyze two such rather unexpected problems.Comment: In Proceedings ICE 2014, arXiv:1410.701

On the Automated Synthesis of Enterprise Integration Patterns to Adapt Choreography-based Distributed Systems

The Future Internet is becoming a reality, providing a large-scale computing environments where a virtually infinite number of available services can be composed so to fit users' needs. Modern service-oriented applications will be more and more often built by reusing and assembling distributed services. A key enabler for this vision is then the ability to automatically compose and dynamically coordinate software services. Service choreographies are an emergent Service Engineering (SE) approach to compose together and coordinate services in a distributed way. When mismatching third-party services are to be composed, obtaining the distributed coordination and adaptation logic required to suitably realize a choreography is a non-trivial and error prone task. Automatic support is then needed. In this direction, this paper leverages previous work on the automatic synthesis of choreography-based systems, and describes our preliminary steps towards exploiting Enterprise Integration Patterns to deal with a form of choreography adaptation.Comment: In Proceedings FOCLASA 2015, arXiv:1512.0694

Distributed Enforcement of Service Choreographies

Modern service-oriented systems are often built by reusing, and composing together, existing services distributed over the Internet. Service choreography is a possible form of service composition whose goal is to specify the interactions among participant services from a global perspective. In this paper, we formalize a method for the distributed and automated enforcement of service choreographies, and prove its correctness with respect to the realization of the specified choreography. The formalized method is implemented as part of a model-based tool chain released to support the development of choreography-based systems within the EU CHOReOS project. We illustrate our method at work on a distributed social proximity network scenario.Comment: In Proceedings FOCLASA 2014, arXiv:1502.0315

Data optimizations for constraint automata

Constraint automata (CA) constitute a coordination model based on finite automata on infinite words. Originally introduced for modeling of coordinators, an interesting new application of CAs is implementing coordinators (i.e., compiling CAs into executable code). Such an approach guarantees correctness-by-construction and can even yield code that outperforms hand-crafted code. The extent to which these two potential advantages materialize depends on the smartness of CA-compilers and the existence of proofs of their correctness. Every transition in a CA is labeled by a "data constraint" that specifies an atomic data-flow between coordinated processes as a first-order formula. At run-time, compiler-generated code must handle data constraints as efficiently as possible. In this paper, we present, and prove the correctness of two optimization techniques for CA-compilers related to handling of data constraints: a reduction to eliminate redundant variables and a translation from (declarative) data constraints to (imperative) data commands expressed in a small sequential language. Through experiments, we show that these optimization techniques can have a positive impact on performance of generated executable code

Global Consensus through Local Synchronization (Technical Report)

Coordination languages have emerged for the specification and implementation of interaction protocols among concurrent entities. Currently, we are developing a code generator for one such a language, based on the formalism of constraint automata (CA). As part of the compilation process, our tool computes the CA-specific synchronous product of a number of CA, each of which models a constituent of the protocol to generate code for. This ensures that implementations of those CA at run-time reach a consensus about their global behavior in every step. However, using the existing product operator on CA can be practically problematic. In this paper, we provide a solution by defining a new, local product operator on CA that avoids those problems. We then identify a sufficiently large class of CA for which using our new product instead of the existing one is semantics-preserving. Finally, we describe how to apply this result to code generation and also sketch how to use the same theory for projecting choreographies

Synthesis of Reo circuits from scenario-based interaction specifications

AbstractIt is difficult to construct correct models for distributed large-scale service-oriented applications. Typically, the behavior of such an application emerges from the interaction and collaboration of multiple components/services. On the other hand, each component, in general, takes part in multiple scenarios. Consequently, not only components, but also their interaction protocols are important in the development process for distributed systems. Coordination models and languages, like Reo, offer powerful “glue-code” to encode interaction protocols. In this paper we propose a novel synthesis technique, which can be used to generate Reo circuits directly from scenario specifications. Inspired by the way UML2.0 sequence diagrams can be algebraically composed, we define an algebraic framework for merging connectors generated from partial specifications by exploiting the algebraic structure of UML sequence diagrams

Automata-Theoretic Protocol Programming (With Proofs)

In the early 2000s, hardware manufacturers shifted their attention from manufacturing faster---yet purely sequential---unicore processors to manufacturing slower---yet increasingly parallel---multicore processors. In the wake of this shift, parallel programming became essential for writing scalable programs on general hardware. Conceptually, every parallel program consists of workers, which implement primary units of sequential computation, and protocols, which implement the rules of interaction that workers must abide by. As programmers have been writing sequential code for decades, programming workers poses no new fundamental challenges. What is new---and notoriously difficult---is programming of protocols. In this thesis, I study an approach to protocol programming where programmers implement their workers in an existing general-purpose language (GPL), while they implement their protocols in a complementary domain-specific language (DSL). DSLs for protocols enable programmers to express interaction among workers at a higher level of abstraction than the level of abstraction supported by today's GPLs, thereby addressing a number of protocol programming issues with today's GPLs. In particular, in this thesis, I develop a DSL for protocols based on a theory of formal automata and their languages. The specific automata that I consider, called constraint automata, have transition labels with a richer structure than alphabet symbols in classical automata theory. Exactly these richer transition labels make constraint automata suitable for modeling protocols. Constraint automata constitute the (denot

Automata-theoretic protocol programming

Parallel programming has become essential for writing scalable programs on general hardware. Conceptually, every parallel program consists of workers, which implement primary units of sequential computation, and protocols, which implement the rules of interaction that workers must abide by. As programmers have been writing sequential code for decades, programming workers poses no new fundamental challenges. What is new---and notoriously difficult---is programming of protocols. In this thesis, I study an approach to protocol programming where programmers implement their workers in an existing general-purpose language (GPL), while they implement their protocols in a complementary domain-specific language (DSL). DSLs for protocols enable programmers to express interaction among workers at a higher level of abstraction than the level of abstraction supported by today's GPLs, thereby addressing a number of protocol programming issues with today's GPLs. In particular, in this thesis, I develop a DSL for protocols based on a theory of formal automata and their languages. The specific automata that I consider, called constraint automata, have transition labels with a richer structure than alphabet symbols in classical automata theory. Exactly these richer transition labels make constraint automata suitable for modeling protocols.UBL - phd migration 201