Providing middleware-level facilities to support architecture-based development of software systems in pervasive environments

Abstract

Software architecture has been widely advocated as an effective abstraction for modeling, implementing, and evolving complex software systems such as those in distributed, decentralized, heterogeneous, mobile, and pervasive environments. Typically, however, architectural abstractions have not been supported directly at the level of system implementation. Instead, even developers with access to state-of-the-art middleware facilities have had to rely on constructs that are at least in part different from those used in the design of their systems. In this paper we argue that it is possible to provide native and flexible software architectural facilities in a middleware platform geared to pervasive environments.We refer to such a platform as "architectural middleware". In support of our argument, we outline the design, implementation, and our experience with a specific architectural middleware platform, which has been used in solving pervasive computing problems in the classroom as well as two industrial domains. We also demonstrate that middleware-level architectural support can be effective, efficient, scalable, and adaptable.

An architecture-driven software mobility framework

“…We have a broad experience applying the overall framework to several distributed and highly heterogeneous systems (Malek et al, 2006Malek, 2007). In each case, we investigated the practicality of the framework in meeting the unique challenges presented by mobile computing.…”

“…An obstacle in maintaining the desired relationship between a software system's architecture and its implementation is that the two rely on different abstractions (Malek et al, 2005b;Malek et al, 2006). Architects often design their systems using high-level constructs (e.g., components, connectors, ports), while programmers implement those abstract constructs using low-level programming language constructs (e.g., pointers, arrays, classes, variables).…”

“…The key underpinning of our work is the observation that an explicit architectural focus can also be instrumental in facilitating mobile computing (Chan and Chuang, 2003;Ciancarini and Mascolo, 1998;Medvidovic et al, 2003;Malek et al, 2005b;Malek et al, 2006). Architecture-driven approaches to quality assurance use architectural abstractions -software components, connectors, communication ports, events, etc.…”

“…While existing research (Chan and Chuang, 2003;Ciancarini and Mascolo, 1998;Sousa and Garlan, 2002), including our own (Medvidovic et al, 2003;Malek et al, 2005b;Malek et al, 2006), has verified the advantages of an architecture-centric approach in the development of mobile software systems, in practice, the adoption of such approaches has been limited. We argue that this is due to the lack of a comprehensive support for architecture-based development of mobile software systems.…”