Fabricia Roos-Frantz

FaMa-OVM: a tool for the automated analysis of OVMs

Orthogonal Variability Model (OVM) is a modelling language for representing variability in Software Product Line Engineering. The automated analysis of OVMs is defined as the computer-aided extraction of information from such models. In this paper, we present FaMa-OVM, which is a pioneer tool for the automated analysis of OVMs. FaMa-OVM is easy to extend or integrate in other tools. It has been developed as part of the FaMa ecosystem enabling the benefits coming from other tools of that ecosystem as FaMaFW and BeTTy.

Assisted Tasks to Generate Pre-prototypes for Web Information Systems

Pre-prototypes are models represented in different abstraction levels that can be validated in preliminary software process phases. So far, these pre-prototypes have been designed by experienced modellers, requiring weeks of work to specify all the details required before generating source code and, finally, get a feedback from clients in acceptance tests. This paper presents a new methodology to develop web information systems through pre-prototypes. Such methodology aims at helping designers with low experience in modelling by allowing them quickly produce detailed pre-prototypes, which are used as input for model transformations that generate working application pieces. Thus, as means of validation, we report on a case study conducted in industry and discuss shortcomings and benefits about our methodology.

On the design of a maintainable software development kit to implement integration solutions

Companies may need to adapt integration tools for a specific context.Existing open-source tools are not so easy to adapt.It is necessary to have more maintainable tools for the integration community.We propose a more maintainable tool for the integration community. Companies typically rely on applications purchased from third parties or developed at home to support their business activities. It is not uncommon that these applications were not designed taking integration into account. Enterprise Application Integration provides methodologies and tools to design and implement integration solutions. Camel, Spring Integration, and Mule range amongst the most popular open-source tools that provide support to implement integration solutions. The adaptive maintenance of a software tool is very important for companies that need to reuse existing tools to build their own. We have analysed 25 maintainability measures on Camel, Spring Integration, and Mule. We have conducted a statistical analysis to confirm the results obtained with the maintainability measures, and it follows that these tools may have problems regarding maintenance. These problems increase the costs of the adaptation process. This motivated us to work on a new proposal that has been carefully designed in order to reduce maintainability efforts. Guarana?SDK is the software tool that we provide to implement integration solutions. We have also computed the maintainability measures regarding Guarana?SDK and the results suggest that maintaining it is easier than maintaining the others. Furthermore, we have conducted an industrial experience to demonstrate the application of our proposal in industry.

Study on Combining Model-driven Engineering and Scrum to Produce Web Information Systems

Model-driven engineering and agile methods are two important approaches to produce web information systems. However, whereas model-driven engineering is based on widely detailed models, agile methods such as Scrum propose to not spend too much time in modelling. Model-driven engineering literature suggests the use of pre-prototypes models that can be evaluated by clients before generating source code, and, agile methods also propose to get client feedback soon after requirements are specified as user stories. Despite of agile methods and pre-prototypes aim to quick validate requirements, their combined use must be carefully studied. The quick design of pre-prototypes must be considered in order to achieve the benefits provided by both approaches. In this paper we propose a new pre-prototype based methodology, which combines practices to achieve quick feedback from clients from model-driven engineering and Scrum based agile methods. We also report on a real-world case study concerning the development of a web information system.

Automated design of multi-layered web information systems

Automatic generation of multi-layered models from annotated mockups.A new MDE-based methodology and tool support for MDWE.Allows the execution of planned iterations for short time-scales.May be used by unexperienced designers and developers.Feasible for adoption in start-up contexts. In the development of web information systems, design tasks are commonly used in approaches for Model-Driven Web Engineering (MDWE) to represent models. To generate fully implemented prototypes, these models require a rich representation of the semantics for actions (e.g., database persistence operations). In the development of some use case scenarios for the multi-layered development of web information systems, these design tasks may consume weeks of work even for experienced designers. The literature pointed out that the impossibility for executing a software project with short iterations hampers the adoption of some approaches for design in some contexts, such as start-up companies. A possible solution to introduce design tasks in short iterations is the use of automated design techniques, which assist the production of models by means of transformation tasks and refinements. This paper details our methodology for MDWE, which is supported by automated design techniques strictly associated with use case patterns of type CRUD. The novelty relies on iterations that are possible for execution with short time-scales. This is a benefit from automated design techniques not observed in MDWE approaches based on manual design tasks. We also report on previous experiences and address open questions relevant for the theory and practice of MDWE.

Using Petri Nets to Enable the Simulation of Application Integration Solutions Conceptual Models

Enterprise application integration concerns with the use of methodologies and tools to design and implement integration solutions to integrate a set of heterogeneous enterprise applications. Amongst the integration technologies to design and implement integration solutions is Guarana. This technology provides a domain-specific language that enables the design of conceptual models. The quality of these models is essential to ensure proper integration. Discovering whether an integration solution can fail and in which conditions it is more likely to happen is a costly, risky, and time-consuming task, since current approaches require software engineers to construct the real solution. Generally, simulation is recommended when problems are impossible or expensive to be solved by actual experimentation. Guarana conceptual models can be classified as stochastic, dynamic, and discrete, and thus it can be simulated taking the advantage of well-established techniques and tools for discrete-event simulation. Therefore, this paper proposes a simulation of Guarana solutions by using Petri nets, in order to analyse such solutions based only on the conceptual models. It shows that an integration solution conceptual model designed with Guarana can be translated into a formal model structured as a Stochastic Petri net. The equivalence of both models is verified by comparing the operation of the Guarana runtime system with the behaviour of a Petri net execution process.

Combining MDE and Scrum on the rapid prototyping of web information systems

Rapid application prototyping RAP is recommended to obtain quick feedback from clients, allowing the validation of software requirements before acceptance tests. In this regard, model-driven engineering MDE and agile methods are two important approaches that suggest the use of techniques for RAP. Some fundamental differences between them exist: MDE focuses on software reuse through annotated system models while agile methods recommend the use simpler models to achieve quick feedback from clients. In order to comply with agility principles but still concerned about the future reuse of the developed software, the quick design of annotated models must be considered. This paper presents a MDE-based RAP methodology and tool support to quickly generate web front ends and models based on the MVC architectural pattern. In addition, we report a case study that has joined MDE and Scrum by applying our methodology and tool support for complete development of web information system in a Scrum-based industrial software project. We also present lessons learnt from the case study and point out some issues for future research in software engineering to facilitate the introduction of MDE in target contexts.

On the Formalisation of an Application Integration Language Using Z Notation

Companies rely on applications in their software ecosystem to provide IT support for their business processes. It is common that these applications were not designed taking integration into account, which makes hard their reuse. Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) focuses on the design and implementation of integration solutions. The demand for integration has motivated the rapid growing of tools to support the construction of EAI solutions. Guarana is a proposal that can be used to design and implement EAI solutions, and different from other proposals includes a monitoring system that can be configured using a rule-based language to endow solutions with fault-tolerance. Although Guarana is available, it has not been formalised yet. This is a limitation since it is not possible to validate the rules written by software engineers, using the rule-based language, to ensure that all possibilities of failure in a given EAI solution are covered. Besides, it is not possible to generate automatically these rules based on the semantics of the EAI solution. In this paper we provide a formal specification of the language provided by Guarana to design EAI solutions, using Z notation.

Formal methods and analysis in software product line engineering: 3rd edition of FMSPLE workshop series

FMSPLE 2012 is the third edition of the FMSPLE workshop series, traditionally affiliated with SPLC, which aims to connect researchers and practitioners interested in raising the efficiency and the effectiveness of SPLE through the application of innovative analysis approaches and formal methods.

Price modeling of IaaS providers an approach focused on enterprise application integration

One of the main advances in information technology today is cloud computing. It is a great alternative for users to reduce costs related to the need to acquire and maintain computational infrastructure to develop, implement and execute software applications. Cloud computing services are offered by providers and can be classified into three main modalities: Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Infrastructureas-a-Service (IaaS). In IaaS, the user has a virtual machine at their disposal with the desired computational resources at a given cost. Generally, the providers offer infrastructure services divided into instances, with preestablished configurations. The main challenge faced by companies is to choose the instance that best fits their needs among the many options offered by providers. Frequently, these companies need a large computational infrastructure to manage and improve their business processes and, due to the high cost of maintaining local infrastructure, they have begun to migrate applications to the cloud in order to reduce these costs. In this paper, we introduce a proposal for price modeling of instances of virtual machines using linear regression. This approach analyzes a set of simplified hypotheses considering the following providers: Amazon EC2, Google Compute Engine and Microsoft Windows Azure.