Run-Time Variability with Roles

Date

Nov 23, 2016

Time

2:30 PM - 3:30 PM

Speaker

M. Sc. Nguonly Taing

Affiliation

Institut für Systemarchitektur, Lehrstuhl Rechnernetze

Language

en

Main Topic

Informatik

Other Topics

Informatik

Description

Run-time variability is one of the major requirements for software systems executed in highly heterogeneous and dynamically changing environments. It normally supports anticipated adaptation while falls short on unanticipated adaptation. Arbitrary triggering any kind of adaptations may cause behavioral inconsistencies as the adaptation safe points have not yet been reached. That is the case where adaptation happens during a series of ongoing method executions that consistently uniform behaviors are required. Having a run-time system supporting both adaptations while ensuring the consistent behaviors resulting from those adaptations is our objective. Nonetheless, the existing solutions for run-time variability mainly tackle on anticipated adaptation while neglect of both unanticipated adaptation and behavioral consistencies. Therefore, we address the yet unsolved and partially solved problems of run-time variability with roles as their pure concept inherently support separation of concerns, adaptation and context-dependent property. To achieve both adaptations, we propose a mechanism called dynamic instance binding that maintains a data structure representing the binding information between player and role instances in a lookup table. That table is used to dynamically select and invoke the behavior of the bound roles. We further introduce the notion of transactions defined as series of method invocation executed atomically to prevent from behavioral changes caused by the adaptation if there are ongoing method executions inside a transaction. The transaction ensures consistent behavior and disruption-minimal for adaptations operating in the multi-threading environment. In this talk, we will define requirements for run-time variability derived from real world examples and literature to position our work precisely from the crowded programming language solutions. We will argue why roles should be the viable option and why proposed mechanisms may satisfy the requirements.

Last modified: Nov 23, 2016, 8:45:15 AM