Simplifying Autonomic Enterprise Java Bean Applications Via Model-Driven Development: A Case Study

Abstract

Autonomic computing systems aim to reduce the configuration, operational, and maintenance costs of distributed applications by enabling them to self-manage, selfheal, and self-optimize. This paper provides two contributions to the Model-Driven Development (MDD) of autonomic computing systems using Enterprise Java Beans (EJBs). First, we describe the structure and functionality of an MDD tool that visually captures the design of EJB applications, their quality of service (QoS) requirements, and the autonomic properties applied to their EJBs. Second, the paper describes how MDD tools can generate code to plug EJBs into a Java component framework that provides autonomic capabilities.

A framework for evaluating quality-driven self-adaptive software systems

“…In hybrid adaptive systems, control actions are generally discrete operations that affect either the computing infrastructure executing the managed system or the set of processes comprising the managed system. Usually, the structure of the managed system is non-modifiable [3,4,5,7,26]. It might be useful to classify hybrid apporaches further.…”

“…It refers to responsiveness, that means the time required for the system to respond to events or the event processing rate in an interval of time. Identified factors that affect performance are latency, the time the system takes to respond to a specific event [5,9]; throughput, the number of events that can be completed in a given time interval-beyond processing rate as the desired throughput must also be observed in time sub-intervals [6,13,18,26]; and capacity, a measure of the amount of work the system can perform [6,13,18].…”

“…Defines the level of reliance that can justifiably be placed on the services the software system delivers. Adaptation goals related to dependability are availability, readiness for usage [1,3,4,14,22,26]; reliability, continuity of service [3,7,8,13,14,22]; maintainability, capacity to self-repair and evolve [1,4,8,22]; safety (from a dependability point of view), non-occurrence of catastrophic consequences from an external perspective (on the environment) [3]; confidentiality, freedom from unauthorized disclosure of information; integrity, non-improper alterations of the system structure, data and behavior [3].…”

“…Settling time and small overshoot are addressed as adaptation properties in Océano [1], the framework for developing autonomic Enterprise Java Bean (EJB) applications proposed by White et al [26], and the self-recovery approach based on microreboots proposed by Candea et al [4]. In Océano settling time is measured in terms of the time required for deploying a new processing node including the installation and reconfiguration of all applications and data repositories.…”

Evolution in Model-Driven Software Product-Line Architectures

“…An example of a DSML for horizontal platforms is the Rhapsody modeling environment (iLogix, 2006), which allows application generation for embedded software platforms based on many real-time operating systems. Other examples of DSMLs for horizontal platforms include the Platform Independent Component Modeling Language (PICML) (Balasubramanian et al, 2005a) and J2EEML (White et al, 2005), which facilitate the development, deployment, and configuration of QoS-enabled component-based DRE systems based on CCM and EJB, respectively.…”