Cornelius Wille

Quality Assurance of Agent-Based and Self-Managed Systems

Based on the authors more than fifteen years of experience in software agent technology, this book first presents the essential basics, aspects, and structures of the agent technology. It then covers the main quality aspects in software system development and gives current examples of agent measurement and evaluation. Focusing on software agent systems and multi-agent systems (MAS), the authors discuss the determination of quality properties. They also explain different techniques and approaches to evaluate the development of MAS. The final chapter summarizes quality assurance approaches for agent-based systems and discusses some open problems and future directions.

Software agents using simulation for decision-making

Though autonomy is one of the major concepts of agent technology, the question how to implement this autonomy is mainly up to the agent developer. To show autonomous behaviour the agent has to make decisions regarding which actions to take next in order to meet its design objectives. This article suggests the use of simulation by an agent in its decision-making process. While simulation-based planning has already been proposed, we take it one step further and also use it for the control of the system the agent is reasoning about and for enabling the agent to take measures proactively. To explore this ideas potential we have implemented an agent test-bed to experimentally compare simulation-based decision-making with a rule-based implementation in a manufacturing control scenario. Both the implementation and the simulation study are presented in this article. Based on how the corresponding agents performed in reducing the production cycle time and in reasoning about the probability of meeting the delivery due date, we conclude that the use of simulation for such planning and control purposes is a promising, intuitive and competitive approach that is well suited to supplement other approaches that are already in use.

COSMIC Functional Size Measurement of Cloud Systems

The continuously increasing market demands for cloud platform and services leads to estimate the effort of development in an explicit manner. The COSMIC function point method should be a good basic of size measurement in order to qualify the different estimations of Cloud system management. This paper discuss size measurement for Cloud systems in a special case and outlines any general aspects of COSMIC FP measurements of Cloud system development.

Messung und Bewertung von Software

ZusammenfassungSoftware bestimmt unser Leben. Sowohl ihr Nutzen als auch die damit verbundenen Risiken wachsen ständig. Das Wissen um Software, ihre Entwicklung und die vielfältigen Anwendungsmöglichkeiten ist Voraussetzung für die Beherrschung ihrer ständig wachsenden Komplexität. Softwaremessung und -bewertung ist die Disziplin in der Softwaretechnik und Informatik, die sich mit der quantitativen Behandlung von Eigenschaften von Softwareprodukten, -prozessen und -projekten befasst. Dabei geht es um die Nutzung von Softwaremessungen, also das Einführen von Messsystemen, das Extrahieren von Messdaten, das Evaluieren der Softwarequalität und das Entscheiden über Verbesserungsmaßnahmen, um bestimmte Ziele, wie beispielsweise Projektkontrolle, Fehlerreduktion oder Effizienzsteigerung, zu erreichen. In diesem Beitrag werden der Stand der Softwaremessung dargestellt, einige aktuelle Probleme identifiziert und zukünftige Arbeiten motiviert.

Empirical-Based Extension of the COSMIC FP Method

This paper discusses the extensions of the COSMIC Function Point method using empirical aspects in order to support the broader application of this method for effort estimation and other software system und processes characterization. The method extensions are based on our experience in different COSMIC applications for embedded systems, agile development, SOA implementations, cloud computing and apps implementation in the last ten years. After a short introduction about this well-known COSMIC method, empirical aspects of software products and processes are described and applications of effort estimation based on sizing the quality, technology and methodology are discussed.

A Metrics Data Base Maturity Model

The prominence of measurement and assessment of software development artifacts is beyond controversy, these days. To expand insular measurement to empirical series of measurement and thus to benefit from it in the long-run, a qualified measurement collection process is almost compulsory. Even though renowned measurement guidance recommends the usage of metrics data bases (MDB), it does not assist in their design or implementation. This paper is therefore intended to address the question of: which aspects account for mature and meaningful MDB? Based on an investigation in factors influencing an MDBs maturity, we introduce a first approach towards a MDB maturity model (MDBMM ) to appraise the maturity of an organizations measurement collection process with the aid of a five level ordinal scale

Software-Messung und -Bewertung für agentenbasierte Systementwicklung und -anwendung

Zunachst wird eine allgemeine Darstellung der Produkt- und Prozessauspragung der Entwicklung von Multiagentensystemen (MAS) angegeben. Darauf aufbauend werden die Besonderheiten der Software-Messung fur MAS gezeigt und beispielhaft diskutiert. Dabei werden sowohl prozess- bzw. produktspezifische Aspekte als auch die Ressourcenaspekte bei der Systementwicklung bzw. bei der Vorbereitung der Einfuhrung in die Betrachtung einbezogen. Fur die Entwicklung agentenbasierter Systeme werden Aspekte ein adaquaten Prozessmodell diskutiert und deren bewertbare Umsetzung modelliert. Der vorliegende Beitrag zeigt erste Anwendungsansatze fur die Agententechnologie der Software-Aglets und diskutiert die Messformen und -Moglichkeiten. Fur eine weitere spezielle Agentenumgebung MALINA werden Messansatze fur den KQML-basierten Nachrichtenaustausch vorgestellt.

A New Metric-Based Approach for the Evaluation of Customer Satisfaction in the IT Area

For the existence and growth of enterprises the protected sales of goods and performances are of decisive opinion. In order to ensure this, the acceptance of the products and performances by the customers is depended on indirect criterion mainly: the customer satisfaction. A lot of criteria and methods with help of the science were or are worked out to measure satisfaction or discontent of the customers to the inquiry. Our paper describes the general satisfaction aspects and their coherence between customer satisfaction, quality and customer loyalty as well as their significance for the development of an enterprise. After the classification of methods for measuring customers satisfaction different methods for the recording of customer satisfaction are shown. A basic model for customer satisfaction is introduced for recording and assessment at software products using software metrics related to the product, process and resources aspects. This method attemps to measure directly the causes to evaluate their effect to the customer satisfaction. In order to evaluate customer satisfaction, a tool COSAM was implemented that allows a metrics-based assessment besides the traditional assessment of the customer satisfaction by customer interviews. On the other hand, the tool can be used for experiments of a given level of customer satisfaction to analyse the effects of successful measured aspects such as ISO 9000 certification, a high level of the developer skills or a high level in the CMM evaluation.