Keith Frampton

Coupling Metrics for Predicting Maintainability in Service-Oriented Designs

Service-oriented computing (SOC) is emerging as a promising paradigm for developing distributed enterprise applications. Although some initial concepts of SOC have been investigated in the research literature, and related technologies are in the process of adoption by an increasing number of enterprises, the ability to measure the structural attributes of service-oriented designs thus predicting the quality of the final software product does not currently exist. Therefore, this paper proposes a set of metrics for quantifying the structural coupling of design artefacts in service-oriented systems. The metrics, which are validated against previously established properties of coupling, are intended to predict the quality characteristic of maintainability of service-oriented software. This is expected to benefit both research and industrial communities as existing object-oriented and procedural metrics are not readily applicable to the implementation of service-oriented systems.

Cohesion Metrics for Predicting Maintainability of Service-Oriented Software

Although service-oriented computing (SOC) is a promising paradigm for developing enterprise software systems, existing research mostly assumes the existence of black box services with little attention given to the structural characteristics of the implementing software, potentially resulting in poor system maintainability. Whilst there has been some preliminary work examining coupling in a service-oriented context, there has to date been no such work on the structural property of cohesion. Consequently, this paper extends existing notions of cohesion in OO and procedural design in order to account for the unique characteristics of SOC, allowing the derivation of assumptions linking cohesion to the maintainability of service-oriented software. From these assumptions, a set of metrics are derived to quantify the degree of cohesion of service oriented design constructs. Such design level metrics are valuable because they allow the prediction of maintainability early in the SDLC.

Comparing the impact of service-oriented and object-oriented paradigms on the structural properties of software

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a promising approach for developing enterprise applications. While the concept of SOA has been described in research and industry literature, the techniques for determining optimal granularity of services and encapsulating business logic in software are unclear. This paper explores this problem using a case study developed with two contrasting approaches to building enterprise applications that utilise services, where one of the approaches employs coarse-grained services developed based on the principles of Object-Orientation (OO), and another approach is based on embedding business rules and logic into executable BPEL scripts and constructing a system as a set of fine-grained services. The quantitative comparison based on a set of mature software engineering metrics showed that a system developed using the BPEL-based approach has a potentially higher structural complexity, but at the same time lower coupling between software modules compared to an OO approach. It was also shown that some of the existing software metrics are inapplicable to SOA, hence new metrics need to be developed.

A Formal Model of Service-Oriented Design Structure

Service-oriented computing (SOC) is a promising paradigm for developing enterprise software systems. The initial concepts of service-orientation have been described in the research and industry literature and software tools for assisting in the development of service-oriented (SO) applications are becoming more widely used. Nonetheless, a precise description of what constitutes a SO system is yet to be formally defined, and the design principles of SOC are not well understood. Therefore, this paper proposes a formal mathematical model covering design artefacts in service-oriented systems and their structural and behavioural properties. This model promotes a better understanding of SO concepts, and in particular, enables the definition of structural software metrics in an unambiguous, formal manner. Finally, although the proposed model is generic, it can be customised to support particular technologies as shown in this paper where the model was tailored for BPEL4WS implementation.

Best practice for grooming critical mid-level roles

The motivation for the study is to examine the effects of several trends on the IT workforce. The purpose of the study is to understand several key mid-level roles in IT client organizations, which are gaining importance for organizations as they employ alternative sourcing arrangements. Mid-level positions, such as project manager, senior system analyst, relationship manager and system architect, continue to be in demand in the organizations we study. Organizations use these roles to design solutions and coordinate their delivery. They also use these roles as a way to allow up-and-coming talent to demonstrate their leadership and problem-solving capabilities. Employees view these roles as an important opportunity to extend their knowledge and skills and to use their experience as a stepping stone toward a management career. This study is intent on better understanding the characteristics, traits and motivations of those who successfully fill these positions and identifying best practices for organizations to identify, develop and retain personnel to fill these roles. Justification for our topic and approach, along with preliminary results, are presented for this work-in-progress.

Information technology architects: approaching the longer view

All Information Technology (IT) systems have architecture and these architectures are developed by people, frequently called IT architects. These people vary in their capabilities and this directly affects the systems they work with. This research investigates whether some previously identified capabilities, (intuitive cognitive style, problem solving, visualisation, and future vision) differ between IT architects of different skill levels. We found that while all IT architects reported as very skilled problem solvers, the more highly skilled IT architects approached problems in a different manner than the others. We also found that the higher skilled IT architects had a significantly longer view of their actions. These results are important for the education of aspiring IT architects and also the selection and development of existing ones.

Towards the definition and validation of coupling metrics for predicting maintainability in service-oriented designs

Service-oriented computing (SOC) is emerging as a promising paradigm for developing distributed enterprise applications. Although some initial concepts of SOC have been investigated in the research literature, and related technologies are in the process of adoption by an increasing number of enterprises, the ability to measure the structural attributes of service-oriented designs thus predicting the quality of the final software product does not currently exist. Therefore, this paper proposes a set of metrics for quantifying the structural coupling of design artefacts in service-oriented systems. The metrics, which are validated against previously established properties of coupling, are intended to predict the quality characteristic of maintainability of service-oriented software. This is expected to benefit both research and industrial communities as existing object-oriented and procedural metrics are not readily applicable to the implementation of service-oriented systems.

Information technology architects: can we improve their capabilities?

IT systems have an underlying architecture that is usually developed by IT architects. The capabilities of IT architects affects the systems they construct. This research aims to increase our understanding of the capabilities of IT architects, investigate what distinguishes highly skilled IT architects from less skilled ones, and determine if some of these capabilities can be improved within an educational environment. These results are important for the education of aspiring IT architects and also the selection and development of existing ones. Keith Frampton is a third year, part-time, PhD student in the School of CS & IT at RMIT University; he expects to complete by 2010. His advisors are Dr Jennie Carroll and Dr James Thom.