Programming distributed and adaptable autonomous components-the GCM/ProActive framework

Abstract

SUMMARYComponent oriented software has become a useful tool to build larger and more complex systems by describing the application in terms of encapsulated, loosely-coupled entities called components. At the same time, asynchronous programming patterns allow for the development of efficient distributed applications. While several component models and frameworks have been proposed, most of them tightly integrate the component model with the middleware they run upon. This intertwining is generally implicit and not discussed, leading to entangled, hard to maintain code. This article describes our efforts in the development of the GCM/ProActive framework for providing distributed and adaptable autonomous components. GCM/ProActive integrates a component model designed for execution on large scale environments, with a programming model based on active objects allowing a high degree of distribution and concurrency. This new integrated model provides a more powerful development, composition, and execution environment than other distributed component frameworks. We illustrate that GCM/ProActive is particularly adapted to the programming of autonomic component systems, and to the integration into a service oriented environment.

Monitoring as-a-service to drive more efficient future system design

“…In GCM/ProActive each component is seen as an autonomous entity in a much service-oriented manner. GCM/proactive enforces a strong separation of concerns, well separating the component management from the functional behaviour of the components [46]. It also revealed efficient for implementing autonomic services.…”

“…GCM/ProActive [46] is the component platform we used for out experimentation. What motivates this choice is the design of the component model imposing a strong encapsulation between components.…”

“…When receiving back the requested resources, it will build a reconfiguration script, and pass it to Execute. GCM/ProActive [46] provides a framework for structuring the elements of the MAPE loop (Monitoring, Analysis, Planning, Execution) as components embedded in the component membrane and easing the programming of autonomic adaptation procedures. These MAPE loops can act at the any level of the composition, but also interact through the hierarchical nature of GCM applications.…”

A Survey of Active Object Languages

“…Active objects provide a convenient programming model for component-based composition of distributed applications [11]. The ProActive library implements the GCM distributed component model.…”

Management of service compositionbased on self-controlled components

“…In the following We will describe our notion of SCC components that is components that can be integrated in a service-oriented approach with dedicated management features. We retain the GCM model for its membrane that comes with a high-level framework for the development of management capabilities [3]. For dynamic management, it will be performed modularly, where each service (component) is responsible for its own adaptation and its own quality of service; while interacting with internal or external services.…”