Marvin Grieger

Sichern der Zukunftsfähigkeit bei der Migration von Legacy-Systemen durch modellgetriebene Softwareentwicklung

Softwareunternehmen stehen zunehmend vor der Herausforderung, grose betriebliche Informationssysteme, die mit Softwaretechnologien wie den 4. Generationssprachen (4GL) und -werkzeugen aus den 90er Jahren entwickelt wurden, durch moderne Systeme mit mehrschichtigen Architekturen abzulosen, die auf fortgeschrittenen Softwaretechnologien aufsetzen. Fur sie gibt es leistungsfahige Entwicklungsplattformen, und die neuen Technologien und Architekturen erlauben es, die Systeme einfacher zu warten und sie leichter an sich andernde Anforderungen anzupassen. Das erhoht die Zukunftsfahigkeit der neuen Systeme. Gleichzeitig sind die Softwareunternehmen bestrebt, die mit viel Aufwand entwickelte Funktionalitat der Legacy-Systeme wieder zu verwenden.

Bidirectional Method Patterns for Language Editor Migration

Language editors play an important role in a Model-Driven Engineering context, as they enable the productive use of Domain Specific Languages (DSLs). To support language editor development, numerous language editor frameworks exist including extensible UML tools such as Enterprise Architect and textual language editor frameworks such as Xtext. When maintaining DSL-based software systems, language editor migration is an important task, which can be well supported with bidirectional transformation (bx) languages. There currently exists, however, no systematic guidelines describing why, when, and how bx languages can be leveraged for language editor migration. In this paper, therefore, we analyse the problem and solution domains for language editor migration, identifying and describing a set of reusable solution strategies that support assessing the potential and advantages of using bx languages in this context.

Model-integrating development of software systems: a flexible component-based approach

A promising way to develop flexible software systems is to include models that are analyzed, modified and executed at runtime as an integrated part of the system. Building such model-integrating systems is a challenging task since the respective modeling languages have to be supported comprehensively at runtime, and these systems still need to be developable in a modular way by composing them from basic building blocks. Model-driven (MDD) and component-based development (CBD) are two established orthogonal approaches that can tackle the mentioned challenges. MDD is based on the use of models and modeling languages as first-class entities to systematically engineer software systems. CBD enables the engineering of modular systems by facilitating a divide-and-conquer approach with reuse. However, combining and aligning the individual principles from both approaches is an open research problem. In this article, we describe model-integrating development (MID), an engineering approach that enables the systematic development of component-based, model-integrating software. MID combines principles from MDD and CBD and is based on the central assumption that models and code shall be treated equally as first-class entities of software throughout its life cycle. In particular, MID leverages the added flexibility that comes with models at runtime, i.e., when models are an integral part of running software. The practicability of the proposed solution concept is rationalized based on a reference implementation that provides the basis for a thoroughly described and critically discussed feasibility study: a dynamic access control product line. The obtained benefits are presented in a distilled way, and future research challenges are identified.

Concept-Based Engineering of Situation-Specific Migration Methods

Software migration methods enable to reuse legacy systems by transferring them into new environments. Thereby, the method used needs to fit to the projects situation by considering conceptual differences between the source and target environment and automating parts of the migration whenever suitable. Using an inappropriate migration method may lead to a decreased software quality or increased effort. Various method engineering approaches have been proposed to support the development of situation-specific migration methods. However, most do not provide a sufficient degree of flexibility when developing a method or fall short in guiding the endeavor. To address this problem, we introduce a situational method engineering framework to guide the development of model-driven migration methods by assembling predefined buildings blocks. The development is centered around the identification of concepts within a legacy system and the selection of suitable migration strategies. We evaluate the framework by an industrial project in which we migrated a legacy system from the domain of real estates to a new environment.

Tickets Without Fine

Global software development projects are characterized by the collaboration of team members that are distributed among different locations and belong to different organizations. They bear their own specific challenges, especially if combined with an agile approach, so that established development processes might become inappropriate. Based on the experience with a real life industrial project involving organizations from India and Germany, we explain how the systematic design and implementation of an artifact-based and ticket-driven process can foster process conformance, transparency, and communication, and thus help to overcome these challenges.