Model Driven Evolution of an Agent-Based Home Energy Management System

Advanced smart home appliances and new models of energy tariffs imposed by energy providers pose new challenges in the automation of home energy management. Users need some assistant tool that helps them to make complex decisions with different goals, depending on the current situation. Multi-agent systems have proved to be a suitable technology to develop self-management systems, able to take the most adequate decision under different context-dependent situations, like the home energy management. The heterogeneity of home appliances and also the changes in the energy policies of providers introduce the necessity of explicitly modeling this variability. But, multi-agent systems lack of mechanisms to effectively deal with the different degrees of variability required by these kinds of systems. Software Product Line technologies, including variability models, has been successfully applied to different domains to explicitly model any kind of variability. We have defined a software product line development process that performs a model driven generation of agents embedded in heterogeneous smart objects with different degrees of self-management. However, once deployed, the home energy assistant system has to be able to evolve to self-adapt its decision making or devices to new requirements. So, in this paper we propose a model driven mechanism to automatically manage the evolution of multi-agent systems distributed among several devices.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Configuración Eco-Eficiente de Atributos de Calidad Funcionales

Los atributos de calidad funcionales (FQAs) son aquellos que para satisfacerlos se necesita incorporar funcionalidad adicional a la arquitectura de las aplicación (e.g., seguridad). La nueva funcionalidad incorporada por estos FQAs (e.g., encriptación) afecta a otro atributo de calidad como es el consumo de energía de la aplicación. Hasta el momento no se han explorado suficientemente las interdependencias entre, por ejemplo diferentes niveles de seguridad y su incidencia en el consumo de energía. En este artículo se propone una solución para ayudar al arquitecto software a generar la cofiguración de los FQAs que optimiza la ficiencia energética de la aplicación. Para ello se dfine un modelo de uso para cada FQA, teniendo en cuenta las variables que influyen en el consumo de energía y como el valor de estas variables cambia en función del punto de la aplicación donde se requiere ese FQA. Se extiende una Línea de Productos Software que modela una familia de FQAs para incorporar la variabilidad del modelo de uso y los frameworks existentes que implementan los FQAs. Generamos la configuración más eco-eficiente seleccionando el framework y las características más adecuadas para cada FQA y configurándolo según los requisitos de la aplicación.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Evolución arquitectónica de servicios basada en modelos CVL con cardinalidad

La computación en la nube se está convirtiendo en un mecanismo predominante para desplegar fácilmente aplicaciones con requisitos especiales, tales como el almacenamiento masivo compartido, o el equilibrado de carga. Esta funcionalidad se proporciona normalmente como servicios por las plataformas en la nube. Un desarrollador puede mejorar tanto el despliegue de sus aplicaciones como la productividad siguiendo un enfoque multi-tenancy, donde diferentes variantes de la misma aplicación pueden adaptarse rápidamente a las necesidades de cada usuario (tenant). Sin embargo, gestionar la variabilidad inherente a las aplicaciones multi-tenant, con cientos de usuarios y miles de configuraciones arquitectónicas diferentes, puede llegar a ser una tarea intratable de abordar manualmente. En este artículo, se propone un enfoque de línea de producto software en el cual: (1) usamos modelos de variabilidad con cardinalidad para modelar cada tenant como una característica clonable, (2) automatizamos el proceso de evolución de las arquitecturas de aplicaciones multi-tenant, y (3) demostramos que la implementación de los procesos de evolución es correcta y eficiente para un número elevado de tenants en un tiempo razonable.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Product Line Architecture for Automatic Evolution of Multi-Tenant Applications

Cloud computing is becoming the predominant mechanism to seamlessly deploy applications with special requirements such as massive storage sharing or load balancing, usually provided as services by cloud platforms. A developer can improve the application’s delivery and productivity by following a multi tenancy approach, where variants of the same application can be quickly customized to the necessities of each tenant. However, managing the inherent variability existing in multitenant applications and, even more importantly, managing the evolution of a multi-tenant application with hundreds of tenants and thousands of different valid architectural configurations can become intractable if performed manually. In this paper we propose a product line architecture approach in which: (1) we use cardinality-based variability models to model each tenant as a clonable feature, (2) we automate the process of evolving the multi-tenant application architecture, and (3) we demonstrate that the implemented process is correct and efficient for a high number of tenants in a reasonable time. We use a running case study in the domain of medical software.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

vEXgine: extendiendo el motor de ejecución de CVL

El Lenguaje CVL (Common Variability Language) carece de una herramienta flexible que permita poner en práctica las necesidades industriales del modelado de la variabilidad en Líneas de Producto Software. Las herramientas existentes que proporcionan soporte para CVL son prototipos incompletos, o se centran principalmente en la especificación de la variabilidad, sin llegar a resolverla sobre modelos reales. Además, no existe una API que permita la interacción directa con el motor CVL para extenderlo o usarlo en una aplicación independiente. Este artículo presenta vEXgine, una implementación adaptable y extensible del motor de ejecución de la variabilidad de CVL.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. Proyectos MAGIC P12-TIC1814 y HADAS TIN2015-64841-

Combining Multiple Granularity Variability in a Software Product Line Approach for Web Engineering

[Abstract] Context: Web engineering involves managing a high diversity of artifacts implemented in different languages and with different levels of granularity. Technological companies usually implement variable artifacts of Software Product Lines (SPLs) using annotations, being reluctant to adopt hybrid, often complex, approaches combining composition and annotations despite their benefits. Objective: This paper proposes a combined approach to support fine and coarse-grained variability for web artifacts. The proposal allows web developers to continue using annotations to handle fine-grained variability for those artifacts whose variability is very difficult to implement with a composition-based approach, but obtaining the advantages of the composition-based approach for the coarse-grained variable artifacts. Methods: A combined approach based on feature modeling that integrates annotations into a generic composition-based approach. We propose the definition of compositional and annotative variation points with custom-defined semantics, which is resolved by a scaffolding-based derivation engine. The approach is evaluated on a real-world web-based SPL by applying a set of variability metrics, as well as discussing its quality criteria in comparison with annotations, compositional, and combined existing approaches. Results: Our approach effectively handles both fine and coarse-grained variability. The mapping between the feature model and the web artifacts promotes the traceability of the features and the uniformity of the variation points regardless of the granularity of the web artifacts. Conclusions: Using well-known techniques of SPLs from an architectural point of view, such as feature modeling, can improve the design and maintenance of variable web artifacts without the need of introducing complex approaches for implementing the underlying variability.The work of the authors from the Universidad de Málaga is supported by the projects Magic P12-TIC1814 (post-doctoral research grant), MEDEA RTI2018-099213-B-I00 (co-financed by FEDER funds), Rhea P18-FR-1081 (MCI/AEI/FEDER, UE), LEIA UMA18-FEDERIA-157, TASOVA MCIU-AEI TIN2017-90644-REDT and, European Union’s H2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement DAEMON 101017109. The work of the authors from the Universidade da Coruña has been funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, NextGenerationEU/PRTR, FLATCITY-POC: PDC2021-121239-C31 ; MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 EXTRACompact: PID2020-114635RB-I00 ; GAIN/Xunta de Galicia/ERDF CEDCOVID: COV20/00604 ; Xunta de Galicia/FEDER-UE GRC: ED431C 2021/53 ; MICIU/FEDER-UE BIZDEVOPSGLOBAL: RTI-2018-098309-B-C32 ; MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 MAGIST: PID2019-105221RB-C41Junta de Andalucía; P12-TIC-1814Universidad de Málaga; UMA18-FEDERIA-157Xunta de Galicia; COV20/00604Xunta de Galicia; ED431C 2021/53Junta de Andalucía; P18-FR-108

Energy efficient adaptation engines for android applications

Context The energy consumption of mobile devices is increasing due to the improvement in their components (e.g., better processors, larger screens). Although the hardware consumes the energy, the software is responsible for managing hardware resources such as the camera software and its functionality, and therefore, affects the energy consumption. Energy consumption not only depends on the installed code, but also on the execution context (environment, devices status) and how the user interacts with the application. Objective In order to reduce the energy consumption based on user behavior, it is necessary to dynamically adapt the application. However, the adaptation mechanism also consumes a certain amount of energy in itself, which may lead to an important increase in the energy expenditure of the application in comparison with the benefits of the adaptation. Therefore, this footprint must be measured and compared with the benefit obtained. Method In this paper, we (1) determine the benefits, in terms of energy consumption, of dynamically adapting mobile applications, based on user behavior; and (2) advocate the most energy-efficient adaptation mechanism. We provide four different implementations of a proposed adaptation model and measure their energy consumption. Results The proposed adaptation engines do not increase the energy consumption when compared to the benefits of the adaptation, which can reduce the energy consumption by up to 20%. Conclusion The adaptation engines proposed in this paper can decrease the energy consumption of the mobile devices based on user behavior. The overhead introduced by the adaptation engines is negligible in comparison with the benefits obtained by the adaptation.Junta de Andalucía MAGIC P12-TIC1814Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2015-64841-RMinisterio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades TIN2017-90644-REDTMinisterio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades RTI2018-099213-B-I00Universidad de Málaga LEIA UMA18-FEDERJA-15

A modular metamodel and refactoring rules to achieve software product line interoperability.

Emergent application domains, such as cyber–physical systems, edge computing or industry 4.0. present a high variability in software and hardware infrastructures. However, no single variability modeling language supports all language extensions required by these application domains (i.e., attributes, group cardinalities, clonables, complex constraints). This limitation is an open challenge that should be tackled by the software engineering field, and specifically by the software product line (SPL) community. A possible solution could be to define a completely new language, but this has a high cost in terms of adoption time and development of new tools. A more viable alternative is the definition of refactoring and specialization rules that allow interoperability between existing variability languages. However, with this approach, these rules cannot be reused across languages because each language uses a different set of modeling concepts and a different concrete syntax. Our approach relies on a modular and extensible metamodel that defines a common abstract syntax for existing variability modeling extensions. We map existing feature modeling languages in the SPL community to our common abstract syntax. Using our abstract syntax, we define refactoring rules at the language construct level that help to achieve interoperability between variability modeling languages.Work supported by the projects MEDEA RTI2018-099213-B-I00, IRIS PID2021-122812OB-I00 (co-financed by FEDER funds), Rhea P18-FR-1081 (MCI/AEI/FEDER, UE), LEIA UMA18-FEDERIA-157, and DAEMON H2020-101017109. // Funding for open access: Universidad de Málaga / CBUA

A first prototype of a new repository for feature model exchange and knowledge sharing

Feature models are the “de facto” standard for variability modelling and are used in both academia and industry. The MODEVAR initia tive tries to establish a common textual feature modelling language that can be used by different communities and can allow informa tion sharing. Feature model related researches use different models for different purposes such as analysis, sampling, testing, debug ging, teaching, etc. Those models are shared in private repositories and there is a risk that all that knowledge is spread across different platforms which hinder collaboration and knowledge reuse. In this paper, we propose a first working version of a new feature model repository that allows to centralise the knowledge generated in the community together with advanced capabilities such as DOI generation, an API, analysis reports, among others. Our solution is a front end interface that uses the popular open science repos itory Zenodo as an end point to materialise the storage of all the information. Zenodo is enhanced with characteristics that facilitate the management of the models. The idea of our repository is to provide existing but also new features that are not present in other repositories (e.g., SPLOT). We propose to populate our repository with all the existing models of many sources including SPLOT.Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades RTI2018-101204-B-C22 (OPHELIA)Agencia Estatal de Investigación TIN2017-90644-RED

Variability-aware data migration tool

Relational databases are widely present in the development of soft ware applications. A typical implementation can be seen in content management systems found on most websites. However, the migra tion of database structure and content between different manage ment systems is not trivial, and the manual creation of scripts makes it difficult to reuse them in other scenarios. This paper presents a tool for database migration by modeling what we call a migration product line. This tool allows to obtain different configurations resulting in final products in a semi-automatic way, i.e., products according to software requirements, considering the variability be tween any two relational databases. To study the feasibility of our proposal, we have implemented a proof of concept that performs the migration between two databases.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación RTI2018-101204-B-C22 (OPHELIA)Junta de Andalucía P20-01224 (COPERNICA)Junta de Andalucía METAMORFOSIS (US-1381375