Dynamic Maintenance of Service Orchestrations

International audienceService-oriented architectures evolved rapidly as the solution to the latest requirements for loosely-coupled distributed computing. Into this broad context several approaches emerged towards the discovery and the systematic composition/orchestration of services. One of the next challenges in this field is the maintenance of service-oriented architectures towards accomplishing the ultimate goal of constructing eternal service-oriented systems out of loosely- coupled basic engineering elements. The particular problem we deal with in this paper is the dynamic maintenance of service orchestrations in the presence of unavailable services. Specifically, we focus on the dynamic substitution of stateful services that become unavailable during the execution of service orchestrations. As an answer to this problem, we propose the SIROCO middleware platform which is further detailed along with an experimental evaluation of our first prototype. Our findings show that SIROCO provides the necessary means for achieving dynamic maintenance with a reasonable expense on the execution of service orchestrations

The Role of Software Architecture in Constraining Adaptation in Component-based Middleware Platforms

. Future middleware platforms will need to be more configurable in order to meet the demands of a wide variety of application domains. Furthermore, we believe that such platforms will also need to be re-configurable, for example to enable systems to adapt to changes in the underlying systems infrastructure. A number of technologies are emerging to support this level of configurability and re-configurability, most notably middleware platforms based on the concepts of open implementation and reflection. One problem with this general approach is that widespread changes can often be made to the middleware platform, potentially jeopardizing the integrity of the overall system. This paper discusses the role of software architecture in maintaining the overall integrity of the system in such an environment. More specifically, the paper discusses extensions to the Aster framework to support the re-configuration of a reflective (component-based) middleware platform in a constrained m..

Concurrency and dynamic protocol update for group communication middleware

The last three decades have seen computers invading our society: computers are now present at work to improve productivity and at home to enlarge the scope of our hobbies and to communicate. Furthermore, computers have been involved in many critical systems such as anti-locking braking systems (ABS) in our cars, airplane control systems, space rockets, nuclear power plants, banking and trading systems, medical care systems, and so on. The importance of these systems requires a high level of trust in computer-based systems. For example, a failure in a trading system (even if it is temporary) may result in severe economical losses. Hence coping with failures is a key aspect of computer systems. A common approach to tolerate failures is to replicate a system that provides a critical service, so that once a failure occurs on a given replica, the requests to the critical service are still executed by other replicas. This approach has the advantage of masking failures, i.e., requests to the service are continuously executed even in the presence of failures. However, replication introduces a performance cost, mainly because the execution of the service requests must be coordinated among all replicas. Furthermore, despite its apparent simplicity, replication is rather complex to implement. Replication is made easier by group communication which defines several abstractions that can be used by the designer of replicated systems. The group communication abstractions are implemented by distributed protocols that compose a group communication middleware. The aim of the thesis is to study two techniques to improve the performance of group communication middleware, and thus, reduce the cost of replication. First, we study dynamic protocol update, which allows group communication middleware to adapt to environment changes. More particularly, dynamic protocol update consists in replacing at runtime a given protocol composing the group communication middleware with a similar but more efficient protocol. The thesis provides several solutions to dynamic protocol update. For instance, we describe two algorithms to dynamically replace consensus and atomic broadcast, two essential protocols of a group communication middleware. Second, we propose solutions to introduce concurrency within a group communication middleware in order to benefit from the advantages offered by multiprocessor (or multicore) computers

An Autonomic Cross-Platform Operating Environment for On-Demand Internet Computing

The Internet has evolved into a global and ubiquitous communication medium interconnecting powerful application servers, diverse desktop computers and mobile notebooks. Along with recent developments in computer technology, such as the convergence of computing and communication devices, the way how people use computers and the Internet has changed people´s working habits and has led to new application scenarios. On the one hand, pervasive computing, ubiquitous computing and nomadic computing become more and more important since different computing devices like PDAs and notebooks may be used concurrently and alternately, e.g. while the user is on the move. On the other hand, the ubiquitous availability and pervasive interconnection of computing systems have fostered various trends towards the dynamic utilization and spontaneous collaboration of available remote computing resources, which are addressed by approaches like utility computing, grid computing, cloud computing and public computing. From a general point of view, the common objective of this development is the use of Internet applications on demand, i.e. applications that are not installed in advance by a platform administrator but are dynamically deployed and run as they are requested by the application user. The heterogeneous and unmanaged nature of the Internet represents a major challenge for the on demand use of custom Internet applications across heterogeneous hardware platforms, operating systems and network environments. Promising remedies are autonomic computing systems that are supposed to maintain themselves without particular user or application intervention. In this thesis, an Autonomic Cross-Platform Operating Environment (ACOE) is presented that supports On Demand Internet Computing (ODIC), such as dynamic application composition and ad hoc execution migration. The approach is based on an integration middleware called crossware that does not replace existing middleware but operates as a self-managing mediator between diverse application requirements and heterogeneous platform configurations. A Java implementation of the Crossware Development Kit (XDK) is presented, followed by the description of the On Demand Internet Computing System (ODIX). The feasibility of the approach is shown by the implementation of an Internet Application Workbench, an Internet Application Factory and an Internet Peer Federation. They illustrate the use of ODIX to support local, remote and distributed ODIC, respectively. Finally, the suitability of the approach is discussed with respect to the support of ODIC

A framework for configuration and management of resources and components in open distributed multimedia systems

Orientador: Mauricio Ferreira MagalhãesTese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Eletrica e de ComputaçãoResumo: Em sistemas multimídia distribuídos existe uma diversidade de dispositivos de hardware, sistemas operacionais e tecnologias de comunicação. Para tratar os requisitos destas aplicações, os componentes do sistema precisam interagir entre eles considerando os aspectos de QoS de cada um dos elementos envolvidos. Neste contexto, esta tese apresenta o Cosmos ? um framework baseado em componentes proposto para dar suporte à configuração e gerenciamento de recursos em sistemas multimídia. Como prova de conceito do Cosmos, o framework definido foi usado no projeto do middleware AdapTV ? um middleware para sistemas de televisão digital interativa. O projeto do AdapTV explora os principais componentes dos modelos que foram definidos no Cosmos: o modelo de descrição de aplicações de forma independente de linguagens; o modelo de interconexão, que trata as questões de comunicação entre componentes heterogêneos usando diferentes tecnologias de comunicação; e o modelo de gerenciamento de QoS, que permite o monitoramento e a adaptação do sistema. Estes modelos foram explorados na implementação de um protótipo do middleware AdapTV e de uma aplicação distribuída que realiza a captura, transmissão e apresentação de um fluxo de vídeo. Para dar suporte à reusabilidade, o modelo explora o conceito de propriedades para estabelecer acordos de configuração (estáticos e dinâmicos) envolvendo negociações entre os requisitos dos componentes e as características da plataformaAbstract: Distributed multimedia applications involve a diversity of hardware devices, operating systems and communication technologies. In order to fulfill the requirements of such applications, their constituting components need to interact with each other, as well as to consider QoS issues related to devices and transmission media. In such a context, this thesis presents the Cosmos component-based framework for configuration and management of resources of open, distributed multimedia systems. As a proof of concept, the framework was used in the design of the AdapTV middleware ? a middleware for interactive television which explores the major components of the Cosmos, including: the model to describe and represent applications independently of language aspects; the interconnection model that allows communication between components in heterogeneous and distributed multimedia environments; and the QoS management model that provides support for adaptation in the middleware player, triggered by QoS and user requirements changes. These models have been explored in the implementation of a prototype, which includes the AdapTV middleware and a distributed application example that captures, transmits and presents a video flow. In order to provide a generic and reusable approach, and to establish configuration agreements among component requirements and platform features, the framework explores the concept of propertiesDoutoradoEngenharia de ComputaçãoDoutor em Engenharia Elétric