Feedback-Control Reference Architecture and Implementation for Building Self-Adaptive Applications

Start Date: 2011   End Date: 2012
Members:  Gabriel Tamura (Project Leader), Cristophe Demarey (INRIA Lille), Lorena Castañeda (MIT Student)

Main Objective

The main objective of this project was To design and implement a reference architecture and corresponding functional proof-of-concept, inspired by control engineering, that makes explicit the crucial elements of feedback-loops, and with them, the feedback-loops themselves that are required for context-based self-adaptive software systems.

Description

Feedback-loops are important models in the engineering of self-adaptive software systems. These models define the behaviour of the interactions among the elements that control the software adaptation process, in order to improve a continued fulfillment of requirements (functional and non-functional) under changing context conditions of system execution. Nonetheless, designing a sound and explicit mapping between feedback-loop structures and self-adaptive software architectures that guarantees system properties at run-time is not trivial. On one hand, the context conditions and its evolution must be modeled and monitored in the system. On the other hand, it is necessary to identify and characterize the system properties of interest, how to measure them and how to relate them to the system architecture. The goal of this project is to propose a reference architecture, inspired by control engineering, that makes explicit the crucial elements of feedback-loops, and with them, the feedback-loops themselves that are required for context-based self-adaptive software systems. This architecture should serve as a reference starting point in the process of defining the architecture and design of this kind of systems, ensuring the visibility of control elements and their extensibility. Thus, our proposal would enable a system architect to have a base for engineering self-adaptive software by making explicit (i) the management of self-adaptive properties as the control reference goals; and (ii) the separation of control concerns by decoupling the different feedback-loops required to achieve the reference goals over time.

The project will be developed by using a particular scenario based on service oriented applications.

Sponsors

Icesi University, INRIA-Lille (Nord Europe – France)

Results

Pending.