Frank Gielen

Automatic inclusion of middleware performance attributes into architectural UML software models

Distributed systems often use a form of communication middleware to cope with different forms of heterogeneity, including geographical spreading of the components, different programming languages and platform architectures, etc. The middleware, of course, impact the architecture and the performance of the system. This paper presents a model transformation framework to automatically include the architectural impact and the overhead incurred by using a middleware layer between several system components. Using this framework, architects can model the system in a middleware-independent fashion. Accurate, middleware-aware models can then be obtained automatically using a middleware model repository. The actual transformation algorithm is presented in more detail. The resulting models can be used to obtain performance models of the system. From those performance models, early indications of the system performance can be extracted.

Service policy enhancements for the OSGi service platform

New content and service providers emerge every day. Each player offers new software components or services to support their technology. In these multi-vendor environments there is a genuine need for integration and interoperability. Integration and interoperability is a first step, once this is achieved components can seamlessly use services from different providers, and that is when service policies come into play. A policy mechanism allows fine grained control over the service usage. The OSGi Service Platform allows seamless integration of components and services but lacks a well defined mechanism for dynamic service policy management. Two approaches are presented for enhancing the OSGi Service Platform with policies. The first approach extends the platform while the second one adapts the plug-in components. Finally they are compared and evaluated against multiple requirements; usability, performance, transparency and backward compatibility.

Accessible user interface support for multi-device ubiquitous applications: architectural modifiability considerations

The market for personal computing devices is rapidly expanding from PC, to mobile, home entertainment systems, and even the automotive industry. When developing software targeting such ubiquitous devices, the balance between development costs and market coverage has turned out to be a challenging issue. With the rise of Web technology and the Internet of things, ubiquitous applications have become a reality. Nonetheless, the diversity of presentation and interaction modalities still drastically limit the number of targetable devices and the accessibility toward end users. This paper presents webinos, a multi-device application middleware platform founded on the Future Internet infrastructure. Hereto, the platform’s architectural modifiability considerations are described and evaluated as a generic enabler for supporting applications, which are executed in ubiquitous computing environments.

Adaptive mobile web applications: a quantitative evaluation approach

The rapidly growing market of mobile devices has set a need for applications being available at anytime, anywhere, and on any device. Although this evolution provides users an unprecedented freedom, developers are facing the challenges caused by mobile device fragmentation. Current application development solutions are insufficiently optimized for the high diversity of mobile platforms and hardware characteristics. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for the development of mobile applications. An adaptive application composition algorithm is introduced, capable of autonomously bypassing fragmentation related issues. This goal is achieved by introducing a quantitative evaluation strategy derived from the Logic Scoring of Preference (LSP) method.

Incorporating SPE into MDA: including middleware performance details into system models

A typical feature of a distributed system is the heterogeneity of its components (their geographical spreading, using different programming languages and platform architectures, etc.). To solve some of the problems related to this heterogeneity, many distributed systems use communication middleware.This paper presents an MDA model transformation algorithm and tool for transforming a high-level Platform Specific Model (high-level PSM) to a low-level PSM by including the structural changes and the overhead of using CORBA as a middleware. The resulting PSM (a UML model annotated with performance information, using the UML performance profile) can be used for generating performance models of the system, using existing methods and tools.

Multi-device application middleware: leveraging the ubiquity of the Web with webinos

The broad range of connected devices has turned the Internet into a ubiquitous concept. In addition to desktop and laptop PCs, the Internet currently connects mobile devices, home entertainment systems, and even in-car units. From this ubiquitous evolution towards sensor-rich devices, the opportunity arises for various new types of innovative software application. However, alongside rises the issue of managing the increasing diversity of device characteristics and capabilities. As device fragmentation grows, application developers are facing the need to cover a wider variety of target devices and usage scenarios. In result, maintaining a viable balance between development costs and market coverage has turned out to be an important challenge when developing applications for a ubiquitous ecosystem. In this article, we present the webinos platform, a distributed Web runtime platform that leverages the Web for supporting self-adaptive cross-device applications. In order to enable the development of such immersive ubiquitous applications, we introduce and evaluate the concept of a context-aware federated overlay architecture.

Design of a multimedia gateway for mobile devices

Although mobile users are currently offered a lot more capabilities on their mobile devices, they still experience some limitations. They can surf the Internet, read their e-mail and receive MMS messages, but they have limited processing power, storage capacity and bandwidth and are limited in their access to peripherals (e.g. printers). We have designed and implemented a multimedia gateway for mobile devices that reduces these limitations. It gives the mobile devices transparent access to high capacity devices connected to the gateway, which is built around a central, modularly extensible server that can run on any PC or home gateway. It manages two sets of modules: one set offering the actual services and another set handling the IP-based wireless interaction with the client applications on the mobile devices. These modules can be added and removed dynamically, offering new services on the fly. Currently services for storage, printing, domotics and playing music are provided. Others can easily be added later on. This paper discusses the architecture and development, the management of modules, the actual services and their benefits. Besides a proprietary implementation, it also looks into OSGi and how both platforms compare to each other, concerning design, architecture, ease of development, functionality, ...

Distributed Sensor-Driven Web Applications through Multi-device Usage Patterns

To access their computer applications and services, people tend to use an increasing variety of consumer electronic devices. Devices range from laptops and netbooks, to smartphones and tablets, and even interactive television sets. In the context of mobile applications, this ubiquitous revolution allows for various multi-device use cases and scenarios that are based on a user’s dynamic usage patterns. In this paper we discuss how people can access an application using multiple devices, both in sequence as well as in parallel. Moreover, we elaborate on the technological opportunities and challenges for such multi-device enabled applications.

Context-Driven Progressive Enhancement of Mobile Web Applications: A Multicriteria Decision-Making Approach

Personal computing has become all about mobile and embedded devices. As a result, the adoption rate of smartphones is rapidly increasing and this trend has set a need for mobile applications to be available at anytime, anywhere and on any device. Despite the obvious advantages of such immersive mobile applications, software developers are increasingly facing the challenges related to device fragmentation. Current application development solutions are insufficiently prepared for handling the enormous variety of software platforms and hardware characteristics covering the mobile eco-system. As a result, maintaining a viable balance between development costs and market coverage has turned out to be a challenging issue when developing mobile applications. This article proposes a context-aware software platform for the development and delivery of self-adaptive mobile applications over the Web. An adaptive application composition approach is introduced, capable of autonomously bypassing context-related fragmentation issues. This goal is achieved by incorporating and validating the concept of fine-grained progressive application enhancements based on a multicriteria decision-making strategy.

An Internet-Based Architecture Supporting Ubiquitous Application User Interfaces

Maintaining a viable balance between development costs and market coverage has turned out to be a challenging issue when developing mobile software applications. The diversity of devices running third-party developed software applications is rapidly expanding from PC, to mobile, home entertainment systems, and even the automotive industry. With the help of Web technology and the Internet infrastructure, ubiquitous applications have become a reality. Nevertheless, the variety of presentation and interaction modalities still limit the number of targetable devices. In this chapter we present webinos, a multi-device application platform founded on the Future Internet infrastructure. Hereto we describe webinos’ model-based user interface framework as a means to support context-aware adaptiveness for applications that are executed in such ubiquitous computing environments.