Catherine Hamon

Towards a Service Mediation Framework for Dynamic Applications

Since recently, it is accepted that mediation can take many forms depending on the application domains: for example, mediation can be seen as a means to deal with interoperability between legacy applications in large Information Systems in a variety of environments including Cloud or to synchronize, integrate and route data from sensor networks in pervasive applications. In this paper we present a lightweight, modular, dynamic and distributed framework called Cilia dedicated to mediation. Cilia aims at bringing an homogeneous solution to deal with mediation both in big and little systems and to ensure the seamless integration of the two systems. In this paper we demonstrate the benefits of the Cilia approach through a case study from an RFID project.

iCasa, a development and simulation environment for pervasive home applications

In this demonstration, we present an integrated environment for the development, test and execution of pervasive applications in the home context. This environment is based on the iPOJO component model and a connected home simulator that has been developed in the context of the pervasive health domain. The investigated service, actimetrics, is based on measurement and analysis of motor activities of a subject in his home.

Cilia: An Autonomic Service Bus for Pervasive Environments

In this paper, we present an autonomic service bus, named Cilia, dedicated to pervasive computing. We begin by presenting a use case related to pervasive health and by recalling the main requirements of that domain. In particular, we explain that autonomic features are absolutely necessary in a field characterized by important environmental dynamism and by the absence of skilled human administrators. We then present the main features of Cilia, including the Java embedded DSL and the runtime environment. Cilia autonomic abilities are then detailed. The framework provides a set of touch points to dynamically monitor and adapt mediation chains under execution. The framework also includes adapters implementing local control loops allowing runtime selection and substitution of devices. Cilia has been validated in a collaborative project, named Medical.

An Autonomic Mediation Framework for Complex Physical Environments

The term Big Data refers to large amounts of data coming from multiple resources, and to the techniques used to collect, manage and analyze them. In this paper, we focus of the collection of such data in complex physical environments like digital houses, smart buildings or connected plants. Precisely, we present a distributed, autonomic mediation framework named Cilia. This framework facilitates the design and deployment of mediation chains and their management at runtime. We also present a motivating example in the field of smart building and we explain why autonomic features are absolutely necessary in domains characterized by important environmental dynamism and by evolving needs of decision-makers. Cilia is currently validated in collaborative projects with the Orange Labs.

Design and runtime architectures to support autonomic management

Autonomic computing seeks to render computing systems as self-managed. In other words, its objective is to enable computer systems to manage themselves so as to minimise the need for human input [5,6]. Software architectures can be used in order to express constraints to be maintained all along the execution of a system and, conversely, to present the state of the running system. In this paper, we present an approach where design and runtime architectures are used to manage service-oriented systems. We show how concepts of design time and runtime can be linked and exploited by an autonomic manager or by a human administrator. This approach is validated on a real use case belonging to the pervasive health domain and built with the Orange Labs.

Context-based conflict management in pervasive platforms

Smart Homes aim to improve the daily lives of the inhabitants by integrating a variety of context-aware applications, generally pertaining to multiple fields and provided by different actors. These applications share the same context and may have to compete for the access to resources in their surroundings. Sharing resources leads to conflicts, particularly if these applications act in contradictory ways or have interfering effects on the environment. Such conflicts can lead to critical situations by putting the homes inhabitants at risk. In this paper, we present a context-based approach to manage conflicts among pervasive applications in smart home environments. Our approach is optimistic and aims to address conflicts at runtime before their undesired effects will occur. This approach is developed and integrated in the iCASA platform as iPOJO components.

Device installation in smart homes

Pervasive applications are today very distributed from devices to cloud facilities, going through fog-level gateways. Contextual information, based on various models, is used at every level but it needs to be frequently synchronized. In this demo, we present an application guiding users to install, move and replace devices that are used by other pervasive applications. This application has required the development of different contextual models on different platforms and kept synchronized.

Leveraging Design and Runtime Architecture Models to Support Self-awareness

Self-aware computing systems possess knowledge about themselves and their environment in order to trigger the internal and external actions. Such ability is particularly interesting in new domains, such as IoT, where systems are often executed in fluctuating conditions and need frequent adaptations to meet their requirements. In this chapter, we show how such knowledge can be expressed as architectural models and how design and runtime architectures can be linked and remained synchronized. The approach is illustrated on a smart home health application called actimetrics, developed with Orange Labs.

Service-oriented context for pervasive applications

Pervasive applications raise major challenges in term of software engineering and remain hard to develop, deploy, execute and maintain. Context-awareness, in particular, is a salient and difficult property that must be met by pervasive applications. We have developed a service-based approach facilitating the design and execution of a context module on top of iPOJO/iCasa, our pervasive platform. This demo will illustrate our approach on diverse applications developed with the Orange Labs in the health domain.

Sharing Devices between Applications with Autonomic Conflict Management

Smart Home aims to improve the quality of life by providing a variety of applications in different domains (e.g., comfort, security, energy, health, etc.). These applications share the same physical environment and may have to compete for the access to devices. Also, they may act in contradictory ways on shared devices. Such conflicts can lead to critical situations by putting homes inhabitants at risk. In this paper, we present our current work which purpose is to allow devices sharing between applications and to manage conflicts.