Suntae Kim

Quality-driven architecture development using architectural tactics

This paper presents a quality-driven approach to embodying non-functional requirements (NFRs) into software architecture using architectural tactics. Architectural tactics are reusable architectural building blocks, providing general architectural solutions for common issues pertaining to quality attributes. In this approach, architectural tactics are represented as feature models, and their semantics is defined using the Role-Based Metamodeling Language (RBML) which is a UML-based pattern specification notation. Given a set of NFRs, architectural tactics are selected and composed, and the composed tactic is used to instantiate an initial architecture for the application. The proposed approach addresses both the structural and behavioral aspects of architecture. We describe the approach using tactics for performance, availability and security to develop an architecture for a stock trading system. We demonstrate tool support for instantiating a composed tactic to generate an initial architecture of the stock trading system.

A Design Quality Model for Service-Oriented Architecture

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is emerging as an effective solution to deal with rapid changes in the business environment. To handle fast-paced changes, organizations need to be able to assess the quality of its products prior to implementation. However, literature and industry has yet to explore the techniques for evaluating design quality of SOA artifacts. To address this need, this paper presents a hierarchical quality assessment model for early assessment of SOA system quality. By defining desirable quality attributes and tracing necessary metrics required to measure them, the approach establishes an assessment model for identification of metrics at different abstraction levels. Using the model, design problems can be detected and resolved before they work into the implemented system where they are more difficult to resolve. The model is validated against an empirical study on an existing SOA system to evaluate the quality impact from explicit and implicit changes to its requirements.

Service robot for the elderly

Our aim is to develop the service robot based on a systematic software engineering method, particularly for real-time, embedded and distributed systems with UML. To do so, we applied the COMET method, which is a UML-based method for the development of concurrent applications, specifically distributed and real-time applications. We describe our experience of applying the COMET/UML method to developing the service robot for the elderly, T-Rot, which is under development at CIR. Here, our emphasis was on an autonomous navigation system for the service robot, which is one of the most challenging issues and is essential in developing service robots, especially mobile service robots to help elderly people. It includes hardware integration for various sensors and actuators as well as software development and integration of modules like a path planner and a localizer.

UML-based service robot software development: a case study

The research field of Intelligent Service Robots, which has become more and more popular over the last years, covers a wide range of applications from climbing machines for cleaning large storefronts to robotic assistance for disabled or elderly people. When developing service robot software, it is a challenging problem to design the robot architecture by carefully considering user needs and requirements, implement robot application components based on the architecture, and integrate these components in a systematic and comprehensive way for maintainability and reusability. Furthermore, it becomes more difficult to communicate among development teams and with others when many engineers from different teams participate in developing the service robot. To solve these problems, we applied the COMET design method, which uses the industry-standard UML notation, to developing the software of an intelligent service robot for the elderly, called T-Rot, under development at Center for Intelligent Robotics (CIR). In this paper, we discuss our experiences with the project in which we successfully addressed these problems and developed the autonomous navigation system of the robot with the COMET/UML method.

Service Identification Using Goal and Scenario in Service Oriented Architecture

Recently, organizations face various business challenges because of rapidly changing user needs and expectations. SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) is a promising technique for adequately handling them in organizations. In developing SOA based systems, service identification is one of the core activities, having a broad influence on the systems. To identify proper services, business goals and business change factors should be analyzed because the ultimate aim of SOA is to achieve business goals and business agility in turbulent business environment. To tackle this, we propose a service identification method based on goal-scenario modeling and a conceptual framework to elicit possible business changes. Traceability among business goals, business changes and identified services are also constructed in this approach. We applied our approach into the HRS (Hotel Reservation System) domain to demonstrate its feasibility.

A feature-based approach for modeling role-based access control systems

Abstract: Role-based access control (RBAC) is a popular access control model for enterprise systems due to its flexibility and scalability. There are many RBAC features available, each providing a different function. Not all features are needed for an RBAC system. Depending on the requirements, one should be able to configure features on a need basis, which reduces development complexity and thus fosters development. However, there have not been suitable methods that enable systematic configuration of RBAC features for system development. This paper presents an approach for configuring RBAC features using a combination of feature modeling and UML modeling. Feature modeling is used for capturing the structure of features and configuration rules, and UML modeling is used for defining the semantics of features. RBAC features are defined based on design principles of partial inheritance and compatibility, which facilitates feature composition and verification. We demonstrate the approach using a banking application and present tool support developed for the approach.

Real Time MODBUS Transmissions and Cryptography Security Designs and Enhancements of Protocol Sensitive Information

Information technology (IT) security has become a major concern due to the growing demand for information and massive development of client/server applications for various types of applications running on modern IT infrastructure. How has security been taken into account and which paradigms are necessary to minimize security issues while increasing efficiency, reducing the influence on transmissions, ensuring protocol independency and achieving substantial performance? We have found cryptography to be an absolute security mechanism for client/server architectures, and in this study, a new security design was developed with the MODBUS protocol, which is considered to offer phenomenal performance for future development and enhancement of real IT infrastructure. This study is also considered to be a complete development because security is tested in almost all ways of MODBUS communication. The computed measurements are evaluated to validate the overall development, and the results indicate a substantial improvement in security that is differentiated from conventional methods.

Intelligent Robot Software Architecture

This paper describes the software architecture of intelligent robots, developed by Center for Intelligent Robotics (CIR). The architecture employs a hybrid type consisting of deliberate, sequencing and reactive behaviors. The primary contributions of the architecture are the followings: 1) reusability and extensibility for the rapid development of robot systems with different requirements and 2) adaptability to distributed computing environments, different OS’s and various programming languages. The architecture has successfully been applied to the development of CIR’s many robot platforms such as T-Rot, Kibo and Easy Interaction Room. T-Rot and Kibo have been exhibited at the 2005 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in Korea.

The protocol design and New approach for SCADA security enhancement during sensors broadcasting system

Several security mechanisms have been investigated and deployed that provide protection for real time platforms. Each security mechanism is contributed to enhance the SCADA system security, but at the same time, the mechanism is limited and depended on the other protocols for the purposes of message security, and its delivery. Few researches are conducted on security for SCADA broadcasting system, but these are limited to end-to-end designs and developments. The security developments for multicasting and broadcasting systems are much complicated, time consumed and/or overloaded with the cryptography mechanisms. After conducting the detail survey, a simulation environment for SCADA water pumping system is designed in-which number of nodes is configured and well known cryptography algorithms are selected, and deployed as an inclusive development for SCADA/DNP3 broadcasting system. The inclusive security development is considered with the best performance, and with predominant weakness in mind, which are present in SCADA/DNP3 broadcasting system. However, overall communication is initiated, monitored and controlled at main controller side with the user defined human machine interface (HMI).

Tool support for quality-driven development of software architectures

In this paper, we present a prototype tool that supports the systematic development of software architectures driven by quality requirements using architectural tactics. The tool allows one to configure architectural tactics based on quality requirements and compose the configured tactics to produce an initial architecture for the system. We demonstrate the tool for developing an architecture for a resource profiling system in the web environment and validate the results using a set of metrics.