Software engineering and middleware: a roadmap (Invited talk)

The construction of a large class of distributed systems can be simplified by leveraging middleware, which is layered between network operating systems and application components. Middleware resolves heterogeneity and facilitates communication and coordination of distributed components. Existing middleware products enable software engineers to build systems that are distributed across a local-area network. State-of-the-art middleware research aims to push this boundary towards Internet-scale distribution, adaptive and reconfigurable middleware and middleware for dependable and wireless systems. The challenge for software engineering research is to devise notations, techniques, methods and tools for distributed system construction that systematically build and exploit the capabilities that middleware deliver

File Tracking For Mobile Devices

Since 2010, the smart device has become an integral part of people’s daily lives. The popularity of smart devices has increased dramatically. However, as the number of devices owned by an individual user increases, so does the risk of data leakage and loss. This problem has started to draw attention because the data contained on smart devices tends to be personal or sensitive in nature. Many people have so much data on their devices that they have no idea as to what they are missing when a device is lost. Although there are already some solutions for data recovery, a data backup system on a remote server, these solutions are not accessible in the non-Internet environment. Development of a data recovery system that is accessible in the non-Internet environment is essential because of the constraints of mobile devices, such as unreliable network. This research proposes an architecture that allows the data recovery in both Internet (cloud) and Non-Internet (local) network by using different connection technologies. A data tracking mechanism has also been designed to monitor data flow among multiple devices, such as the cloud server, mobile devices, and tablets. Additionally, a synchronization system has been developed to ensure the consistency of tracking information. By designing and implementing this architecture, the two problems regarding to the data: "what is where" and "who has what" are resolved

Data Synchronization in a Network-Volatile Mobile Ecosystem

Today, it is a major issue for mobile applications to maintain a replica state of the server on mobile devices. This creates the need to keep data on both the server and the mobile. In such cases, when the data changes on the server, the new state of the data has to be updated on the mobile in order to maintain a consistent view of the data flow. However, mobile devices communicate over wireless mediums (.e.g., Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 3.5G/4G, etc.) which can experience intermittent connectivity. The volatility of the network is also influenced by low-bandwidth. The direct effects of these issues are high latency and inconsistency issues between the data on the mobile clients and the remote servers. In this work, I present a detail review on the topic of data synchronization in mobile networks. Then, a generic architecture called MobiQ is proposed which can keep working in an offline mode to record local modifications and can synchronize with the remote servers when connectivity is restored. This is achieved through the proposal of an efficient synchronization protocol which combines different synchronization and replication strategies. Moreover, the MobiQ framework provides a secured environment to work with data. The implemented architecture is designed and tested in mobile questionnaire system and the result is encouraging

User's and Administrator's Manual of AMGA Metadata Catalog v 2.4.0 (EMI-3)

User's and Administrator's Manual of AMGA Metadata Catalog v 2.4.0 (EMI-3

A generic framework for process execution and secure multi-party transaction authorization

Process execution engines are not only an integral part of workflow and business process management systems but are increasingly used to build process-driven applications. In other words, they are potentially used in all kinds of software across all application domains. However, contemporary process engines and workflow systems are unsuitable for use in such diverse application scenarios for several reasons. The main shortcomings can be observed in the areas of interoperability, versatility, and programmability. Therefore, this thesis makes a step away from domain specific, monolithic workflow engines towards generic and versatile process runtime frameworks, which enable integration of process technology into all kinds of software. To achieve this, the idea and corresponding architecture of a generic and embeddable process virtual machine (ePVM), which supports defining process flows along the theoretical foundation of communicating extended finite state machines, are presented. The architecture focuses on the core process functionality such as control flow and state management, monitoring, persistence, and communication, while using JavaScript as a process definition language. This approach leads to a very generic yet easily programmable process framework. A fully functional prototype implementation of the proposed framework is provided along with multiple example applications. Despite the fact that business processes are increasingly automated and controlled by information systems, humans are still involved, directly or indirectly, in many of them. Thus, for process flows involving sensitive transactions, a highly secure authorization scheme supporting asynchronous multi-party transaction authorization must be available within process management systems. Therefore, along with the ePVM framework, this thesis presents a novel approach for secure remote multi-party transaction authentication - the zone trusted information channel (ZTIC). The ZTIC approach uniquely combines multiple desirable properties such as the highest level of security, ease-of-use, mobility, remote administration, and smooth integration with existing infrastructures into one device and method. Extensively evaluating both, the ePVM framework and the ZTIC, this thesis shows that ePVM in combination with the ZTIC approach represents a unique and very powerful framework for building workflow systems and process-driven applications including support for secure multi-party transaction authorization

A consistency service for replicated heterogeneous databases in a Grid environment

The present work, written during a period of scientific collaboration with INFN (National Institute of Nuclear Physics), proposes a mechanism for maintaining consistency among replicated heterogeneous databases. This mechanism is integrated in a Replica Consistency Service for Data Grid environments. Nowadays, an increasing number of applications, manage an enormous quantity of data distributed on a very large scale. In a Data Grid the data files are replicated to different sites. The replication of data among multiple databases is the only way to ensure that the data are available where and when they are needed. The catalogs, used for maintaining information about the state of file replicas in a Data Grid, use replication to improve availability, to reduce data access latency, and to improve the performances of distributed applications. Moreover it is useful for fault tolerance. A Data Grid may serve different user communities (Virtual Organizations), with different requirements. Therefore different types of data may be stored in different formats and in storage devices of different vendors. A mechanism is needed to maintain consistency among the replicas of a certain catalog that uses heterogeneous back-end databases. In a Data Grid, heterogeneous data storage involves the problem of a uniform interface to access heterogeneous information; this problem requires tools for data integration. Our goal for this work is to provide the ability to manage and to execute a replica synchronization; in particular we have a replica on an Oracle server and another replica on a MySQL server with the same logical schema. With the word "synchronization" we mean that an update of the target database will be done. Only the changes that happen on the source database will be propagated to the target database

Developing Resource Usage Service in WLCG

According to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of the World-wide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) project, participating sites are required to provide resource usage or accounting data to the Grid Operational Centre (GOC) to enrich the understanding of how shared resources are used, and to provide information for improving the effectiveness of resource allocation. As a multi-grid environment, the accounting process of WLCG is currently enabled by four accounting systems, each of which was developed independently by constituent grid projects. These accounting systems were designed and implemented based on project-specific local understanding of requirements, and therefore lack interoperability. In order to automate the accounting process in WLCG, three transportation methods are being introduced for streaming accounting data metered by heterogeneous accounting systems into GOC at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in the UK, where accounting data are aggregated and accumulated throughout the year. These transportation methods, however, were introduced on a per accounting-system basis, i.e. targeting at a particular accounting system, making them hard to reuse and customize to new requirements. This paper presents the design of WLCG-RUS system, a standards-compatible solution providing a consistent process for streaming resource usage data across various accounting systems, while ensuring interoperability, portability, and customization

Proxy Module for System on Mobile Devices (SyD) Middleware

Nowadays, users of mobile devices are growing. The users expect that they could communicate constantly using their mobile devices while they are also constantly moving. Therefore, there is a need to provide disconnection tolerance of transactions in the mobile devices’ platforms and its synchronization management. System on Mobile Devices (SyD) is taken as one of the examples of mobile devices’ platforms. The thesis studies the existing SyD architecture, from its framework into its kernel, and introduces the proxy module enhancement in SyD to handle disconnection tolerance, including its synchronization. SyD kernel has been extended for the purpose of enabling proxy module. SyDSync has been constructed for synchronization with the proxy. The timeout has been studied for seamless proxy invocation. A Camera application that tries to catch a stolen vehicle has been simulated for the practical purpose of using the proxy module extension