Lionel Seinturier

A component-based middleware platform for reconfigurable service-oriented architectures

ThetextitService Component Architecture (SCA) is a technology‐independent standard for developing distributed Service‐oriented Architectures (SOA). The SCA standard promotes the use of components and architecture descriptors, and mostly covers the lifecycle steps of implementation and deployment. Unfortunately, SCA does not address the governance of SCA applications and provides no support for the maintenance of deployed components. This article covers this issue and introduces the FRASCATI platform, a run‐time support for SCA with dynamic reconfiguration capabilities and run‐time management features. This article presents the internal component‐based architecture of the FRASCATI platform, and highlights its key features. The component‐based design of the FRASCATI platform introduces many degrees of flexibility and configurability in the platform itself and it can host the SOA applications. This article reports on micro‐benchmarks highlighting that run‐time manageability in the FRASCATI platform does not decrease its performance when compared with the de facto reference SCA implementation: Apache TUSCANY. Finally, a smart home scenario illustrates the extension capabilities and the various reconfigurations of the FRASCATI platform. Copyright

Reconfigurable SCA Applications with the FraSCAti Platform

The Service Component Architecture (SCA) is a technology agnostic standard for developing and deploying distributed service-oriented applications. However, SCA does not define standard means for runtime manageability (including introspection and reconfiguration) of SOA applications and of their supporting environment. This paper presents the FraSCAti platform, which brings runtime management features to SCA, and discusses key principles in its design: the adoption of an extended SCA component model for the implementation of SOA applications and of the FraSCAti platform itself; the use of component-based interception techniques for dynamically weaving non-functional services such as transaction management with components. The paper presents micro-benchmarks that show that runtime manageability in the FraSCAti platform is achieved without hindering its performance relative to the de facto reference SCA implementation, Apaches Tuscany.

Scalable processing of context information with COSMOS

Ubiquitous computing environments are characterised by a high number of heterogeneous devices that generate a huge amount of context data. These data are used to adapt applications to changing execution contexts. However, legacy frameworks fail to process context information in a scalable and efficient manner. In this paper, we propose to organise the classical functionalities of a context manager to introduce a 3-steps cycle of data collection, interpretation, and situation identification. We propose the COSMOS framework, which is based on the concepts of context node and context management policies translated into software components in software architecture. This paper presents COSMOS and evaluates its efficiency throughout the example of the composition of context information to implement a caching/offloading adaptation situation.

JAC: an aspect-based distributed dynamic framework

In this paper, we present the Java Aspect Components (JAC) framework for building aspect‐oriented distributed applications in Java. This paper describes the aspect‐oriented programming model and the architectural details of the framework implementation. The framework enables extension of application semantics for handling well‐separated concerns. This is achieved with a software entity called an aspect component (AC). ACs provide distributed pointcuts, dynamic wrappers and metamodel annotations. Distributed pointcuts are a key feature of our framework. They enable the definition of crosscutting structures that do not need to be located on a single host. ACs are dynamic. They can be added, removed, and controlled at runtime. This enables our framework to be used in highly dynamic environments where adaptable software is needed. Copyright

Using Complex Event Processing for Dynamic Business Process Adaptation

As the amount of data generated by todays pervasive environments increases exponentially, there is a stronger need to decipher the important information that is hidden among it. By using complex event processing, we can obtain the information that really matters to our organization and use it to improve our processes. However, even when this information is retrieved, business processes remain static and cannot be changed dynamically to adapt to the actual scenario, diminishing the advantages that can be achieved. In this paper we present CEVICHE, a framework that combines the strengths of complex event processing and dynamic business process adaptation, which allows to respond to the needs of todays rapidly changing environments. We use a simple car rental scenario to show how CEVICHE could be used to maintain the quality of service of a business process by adapting it according to the situation.

A model for developing component-based and aspect-oriented systems

Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) and Component- Based Software Engineering (CBSE) offer solutions to improve the separation of concerns and to enhance a program structure. If the integration of AOP into CBSE has already been proposed, none of these solutions focus on the application of CBSE principles to AOP. In this paper we propose a twofold integration of AOP and CBSE. We introduce a general model for components and aspects, named Fractal Aspect Component (FAC). FAC decomposes a software system into regular components and aspect components (ACs), where an AC is a regular component that embodies a crosscutting concern. We reify the aspect domain of an AC and the relationship between an AC and a component, called an aspect binding, as first-class runtime entities. This clarifies the architecture of a system where components and aspects coexist. The system can evolve from the design to the execution by adding or removing components, aspects or bindings.

A Federated Multi-cloud PaaS Infrastructure

Cloud platforms are increasingly being used for hosting a broad diversity of services from traditional e-commerce applications to interactive web-based Ides. How-ever, we observe that the proliferation of offers by cloud providers raises several challenges. Developers will not only have to deploy applications for a specific cloud, but will also have to consider migrating services from one cloud to another, and to manage distributed applications spanning multiple clouds. In this paper, we present our federated multi-cloud PaaS infrastructure for addressing these challenges. This infrastructure is based on three foundations: i) an open service model used to design and implement both our multi-cloud PaaSand the SaaS applications running on top of it, ii) a configurable architecture of the federated PaaS, and iii) some infrastructure services for managing both our multi-cloud PaaS and the SaaS applications. We then show how this multi-cloud PaaS can be deployed on top of thirteen existing IaaS/PaaS. We finally report on three distributed SaaS applications developed with and deployed on our federated multi-cloud PaaS infrastructure.

A preliminary study of the impact of software engineering on GreenIT

GreenIT has emerged as a discipline concerned with the optimization of software solutions with regards to their energy consumption. In this domain, most of state-of-the-art solutions offer limited or constraining approaches to monitor the energy consumption of a device or a process. In this paper, we therefore report on a runtime energy monitoring framework we developed to easily report on the energy consumption of system processes. Concretely, our approach adopts an OS-level library, called PowerAPI, which estimates the power consumption of processes according to different dimensions (CPU, network, etc.). In order to better understand potential energy leaks of legacy software, we use this library to study the impact of programming languages and algorithmic choices on the energy consumption. This preliminary study is based on an empirical evaluation of a eight implementations of the Towers of Hanoi problem.

Software Architecture Patterns for a Context-Processing Middleware Framework

Ubiquitous applications are characterized by variations in their execution context. Their correct operation requires some continual adaptations based on the observation of this context. The design and implementation of these observation policies is thus the cornerstone of any ubiquitous application. COSMOS is a component-based framework for managing context information in ubiquitous context-aware applications. COSMOS decomposes context observation policies into fine-grained units called context nodes, which it implements as software components. These units perform basic context-related operations, such as gathering data from a system or network probe and computing threshold or average values. The framework assembles these units with a set of well-identified architectural design patterns. A mobile computing scenario illustrates the frameworks benefits.

SPOON: A library for implementing analyses and transformations of Java source code

This paper presents SPOON, a library for the analysis and transformation of Java source code. SPOON enables Java developers to write a large range of domain‐specific analyses and transformations in an easy and concise manner. SPOON analyses and transformations are written in plain Java. With SPOON, developers do not need to dive into parsing, to hack a compiler infrastructure, or to master a new formalism. Copyright