Antonello Calabrò

Towards a model-driven infrastructure for runtime monitoring

In modern pervasive dynamic and eternal systems, software must be able to self-organize its structure and self-adapt its behavior to enhance its resilience and provide the desired quality of service. In this high-dynamic and unpredictable scenario, flexible and reconfigurable monitoring infrastructures become key instruments to verify at runtime functional and non-functional properties. In this paper, we propose a property-driven approach to runtime monitoring that is based on a comprehensive Property Meta-Model (PMM) and on a generic configurable monitoring infrastructure. PMM supports the definition of quantitative and qualitative properties in a machine-processable way making it possible to configure the monitors dynamically. Examples of implementation and applications of the proposed model-driven monitoring infrastructure are excerpted from the ongoing CONNECT European Project.

GLIMPSE: a generic and flexible monitoring infrastructure

To respond to the growing needs of evolution and adaptation coming from the modern open connected world, applications must continuously monitor their own execution and the surrounding context. The events to be observed, belonging to guaranteed functional and non-functional properties, can themselves vary in scope and along time. Therefore the monitor must be easily configurable and able to serve differing event consumers. To address these requirements, we developed the glimpse monitoring infrastructure conceived having flexibility and generality as main concerns. The paper introduces the architecture of glimpse and shows how it can support runtime performance analysis through a simple example.

Monitoring service choreographies from multiple sources

Modern software applications are more and more conceived as distributed service compositions deployed over Grid and Cloud technologies. Choreographies provide abstract specifications of such compositions, by modeling message-based multi-party interactions without assuming any central coordination. To enable the management and dynamic adaptation of choreographies, it is essential to keep track of events and exchanged messages and to monitor the status of the underlying platform, and combine these different levels of information into complex events meaningful at the application level. Towards this goal, we propose a Multi-source Monitoring Framework that we are developing within the EU Project CHOReOS, which can correlate the messages passed at business-service level with observations relative to the infrastructure resources. We present the monitor architecture and illustrate it on a use-case excerpted from the CHOReOS project.

Yet another meta-model to specify non-functional properties

In service-oriented systems non-functional properties become very important to support run-time service discovery and composition. Software engineers should take care of them for guaranteeing the service quality in all the software life-cycle phases, from requirements specification to design, to system deployment and execution monitoring. This wide scope and the criticality of non-functional properties demand that they are expressed in a language which is intuitive and easy to use for the service quality specification, and at the same time is machine-processable to be automatically handled at run-time. In this paper we present a Property Meta-Model that aims to reach these two main objectives and show as a proof of concept its use for the modeling of two different properties.

Book4All: A Tool to Make an e-Book More Accessible to Students with Vision/Visual-Impairments

Empowering people who are blind or otherwise visually impaired includes ensuring that products and electronic materials incorporate a broad range of accessibility features and work well with screen readers and other assistive technology devices. This is particularly important for students with vision impairments. Unfortunately, authors and publishers often do not include specific criteria when preparing the contents. Consequently, e-books can be inadequate for blind and low vision users, especially for students. In this paper we describe a semi-automatic tool developed to support operators who adapt e-documents for visually impaired students. The proposed tool can be used to convert a PDF e-book into a more suitable accessible and usable format readable on desktop computer or on mobile devices.

Monitoring of Business Process Execution Based on Performance Indicators

Nowadays, more and more industrial organizations are using Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) for process modeling. Key performance Indicators (KPIs) are seton such process models so to get a quantitative assessment of critical success metrics. A timely and reliable monitoring of KPIs is instrumental to Business Process (BP) management, and several frameworks are being proposed for such purpose. Business process monitoring solutions can be embedded into the Business Process Modeling (BPM) execution framework or integrated as additional facilities. This paper presents an integrated framework that allows for modeling, execution and analysis of business process based on a flexible and adaptable monitoring infrastructure. The main advantage of the proposed approach is that it is independent from any specific business process modeling notation and execution engine and allows for the definition and evaluation of user-specific KPI measures.

Dependability and Performance Assessment of Dynamic CONNECTed Systems

In this chapter we present approaches for analysis and monitoring of dependability and performance of connected systems, and their combined usage. These approaches need to account for dynamicity and evolvability of connected systems. In particular, the chapter covers the quantitative assessment of dependability and performance properties through a stochastic model-based approach: first an overview of dependability-related measurements and stochastic model-based approaches provides the necessary background. Then, our proposal in connect of an automated and modular dependability analysis framework for dynamically connected systems is described. This framework can be used off-line for system design (specifically, in connect, for connector synthesis), and on-line, to continuously assess system behaviour and detect possible issues arising at run-time. For the latter purpose, a generic, flexible and modular monitoring infrastructure has been developed. Monitoring is at the core of the connect vision, in order to ensure run-time observation of specified quantitative properties and possibly trigger adequate reactions. We focus here on the interaction chain between monitoring and analysis, to allow for on-line continuous validation of specified dependability and performance properties. Illustrative examples of applications of analysis and monitoring are provided with reference to the connect Terrorist Alert scenario.

On-the-Fly Dependable Mediation between Heterogeneous Networked Systems

The development of next generation Future Internet systems must be capable to address complexity, heterogeneity, interdependency and, especially, evolution of loosely connected networked systems. The European project Connect addresses the challenging and ambitious topic of ensuring eternally functioning distributed and heterogeneous systems through on-the-fly synthesis of the Connectors through which they communicate. In this paper we focus on the Connect enablers that dynamically derive such connectors ensuring the required non-functional requirements via a framework to analyse and assess dependability and performance properties. We illustrate the adaptive approach under development integrating synthesis of Connectors, stochastic model-based analysis performed at design time and run-time monitoring. The proposed framework is illustrated on a case study.

KPI Evaluation of the Business Process Execution through Event Monitoring Activity

Nowadays, more and more industrial organizations are using Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) for process modeling. Data collected during business process execution are used for deriving the key performance indicators (KPI) that allow continuous tracking of the process behavior and measurement of process-specific goals. KPIs evaluation leverages on business process monitoring solutions that can be embedded into the BPM execution framework or integrated as additional facilities. This paper presents an integrated framework that allows modeling, execution and analysis of business process based on a flexible and adaptable monitoring infrastructure. The main advantage of the proposed approach is that it is independent from any specific business process modeling notation and execution engine and allows for the definition and evaluation of user-specific KPI measures. An example of implementation of the proposed execution and monitoring framework as well as its validation on a real case study in the learning domain are also presented.

Improving Mobility of Pedestrian Visually-Impaired Users

Objective In the present paper the study, design and prototyping of a mobility aid system for visually impaired persons in outdoor scenarios is presented. The application scenario is autonomous mobility in urban context, and, in particular, the living of outdoor public places of tourist/cultural interest and urban routes. Main Content The basic idea behind the project is to realize a safe path that can be followed by the user thanks to a tactile vibration provided by a modified white cane (Smart Cane), potentially usable also as a traditional one; a smartphone provides the user with additional information about the route. The basic guidance function on a safe path is suitable also in an indoor scenario, e.g. in exhibitions, museums, public buildings. Final users were involved in the definition of mobility requirements and during system tests. The safe path is composed by tracks, branch points and points of interest, and is implemented by means of an electrical circuit generating a magnetic field detected by a receiver on the white cane tip. The Smart Cane is equipped with an electronic device (Smart Cane Controller) managing cane functions. The path electrical circuit may be buried in several kinds of ground or placed on ground surface. The user follows the path sweeping the white cane in front of him/her and perceiving a tactile vibration when the Smart Cane tip is in the range of a few tens centimeters from the track centre. The smartphone brought by the user is wirelessly connected to the Smart Cane Controller and to a small portable GPS receiver. The user queries the mobile phone by means of a switchbased user interface on the cane; thanks to GPS positioning information (strict positioning accuracy not needed), the mobile phone provides vocal information about possible destinations, directions and about points of interest. Results The system electronics and the firmware and software applications were completely developed and tested both in lab and in real operating conditions. For the test and Demonstration phase, a bastion on the Walls of Lucca city, Italy, was selected, and the system was tested also with final users. A second run of trials with other users is foreseen in late Spring and Summer 2011. Conclusion The proposed mobility aid system was completely designed, developed and partially tested. A Demonstration phase will allow final users to further test and validate the system, providing hints and feedbacks for a possible engineered future version.