Architecture-centric support for adaptive service collaborations

Abstract

In today's volatile business environments, collaboration between information systems, both within and across company borders, has become essential to success. An efficient supply chain, for example, requires the collaboration of distributed and heterogeneous systems of multiple companies. Developing such collaborativ e applications and building the supporting information systems poses several engineering challenges. A key challenge is to manage the ever growing design complexity. In this article, we argue that software architecture should play a more prominent role in the development of collaborative applications. This can help to better manage design complexity by modularizing collaborations and separating concerns. State of the art solutions, however, often lack proper abstractions for modeling collaborations at architectural level or do not reify these abstractions at detailed design and implementation level. Developers, on the other hand, rely on middleware, business process management, and Web services, techniques that mainly focus on low-level infrastructure.To address the problem of managing the design complexity of collaborative applications, we present Macodo. Macodo consists of three complementary parts: (1) a set of abstractions for modeling adaptive collaborations, (2) a set of architectural v iews, the main contribution of this article, that reify these abstractions at architectural level, and (3) a proof of concept middleware infrastructure that supports the architectural abstractions at design and implementation level. We evaluate the architectural v iews in a controlled experiment. Results show that the use of Macodo can reduce fault density and design complexity, and improve reuse and productivity. The main contributions of this article are illustrated in a supply chain management case.

Designing service-based applications in the presence of non-functional properties: A mapping study

“…Middleware [198], [57], [77], [110], [210], [36], [67], [131], [90], [76], [185] [13], [88], [29], [39], [145], [130], [165], [111], [166], [34], [172], [217], [187], [66], [37], [52], [94], [2], [10], [152], [82], [195], [3], [5], [12], [26], [31], [45], [92], [101], [211], [127], [137], [138], [140], [170], [173], [69], [164].…”

Agent Environments for Multi-agent Systems – A Research Roadmap

“…However, developing such collaborative applications and building the supporting information systems poses several engineering challenges. [20] presents Macodo, an architectural approach that aims to address the problem of managing the design complexity of collaborative applications.…”

“…2 shows the primary elements of the Macodo middleware. [20] presents a concrete realization of the Macodo middleware using Web Services technology. Once specified, collaboration modules can be loaded in the Macodo middleware.…”

Do external feedback loops improve the design of self-adaptive systems? A controlled experiment

“…Finally, a recent experiment [25] evaluates the impact on the design of a set of higher level abstractions for modeling adaptive collaborations of service-based systems. The study is performed with Master-level students and compares the use of state of the art modeling abstractions for service-based systems with new proposed modeling abstractions, including collaboration, role, interaction, and capability.…”

“…However, the abstraction level and focus in both studies is different. [25] considers the design at the level of business processes and their interactions, while the study presented in this paper looks at design at the level of software components and their interactions. Furthermore, the focus of [25] is on the design of a service-based system using new modeling abstractions, while we focus on the impact of the design when using an external feedback loop to add adaptation properties to an existing design.…”