SoD-HCER: Using Non-Linear Negotiation to Enable the Design of Robust Open Software Systems

由独立开发的组件组成的开放式软件系统使用商定的协议进行交互，代表了用于支持应用程序的最有前途的方法之一，其中通常先前没有一起工作的各种组织必须在手头的基础设施上在短时间内组装和重新配置（例如，联军、灾难恢复行动、供应链、协作工程项目和电子市场）。 确保这样的系统是可靠的是一个挑战;开放系统吸引人的开放性使它们处于一个潜在故障模式（“异常”）和相关异常处理技术众多且往往不明显的领域。 组件可能无法正确运行;它们可能会撒谎以获得优势，甚至恶意行为。 我们不能查看或操纵它们的代码或内部状态。 由于没有一个组件“负责”，我们必须准备好处理具有非本地原因和影响的紧急问题。 这些问题被各种可能的开放系统交互协议所加剧，从约束满足到市场到群集，每个协议都有自己独特的一组潜在异常和相关处理程序。 不幸的是，现有的技术并不能帮助我们设计更可靠的开放系统;设计人员必须依靠他们的经验和直觉来确定哪些异常适用于他们的特定系统，以及如何最好地解决这些异常。 在这个项目中，PI将通过帮助合作软件设计人员快速搜索可能的开放系统设计的巨大空间来解决这个差距，他们认为这些设计对于他们的特定应用程序是可靠和有效的。 为了做到这一点，他将整合和扩展两个强大的创新，迄今为止还没有应用在软件工程环境中。 第一个是开放系统协调机制的分类学组织的知识库，每个机制链接到其特征异常和每个异常链接到其可能的处理程序。 该知识库通过描绘一组正交设计维度来定义可能的开放系统设计的非常大的空间。 第二个创新是一个家庭的谈判算法，帮助设计师与不同的利益迅速收敛到帕累托最优（双赢）的设计协议，在这样大的非线性设计空间。 到目前为止，在非线性协商方面做的工作很少（即，与相互依赖的问题的谈判），这项工作专门集中在“平面”设计空间（具有一组静态的预定义设计尺寸）。 该项目将推进我们对如何在分类结构的设计空间中找到帕累托最优解决方案的理解，这种形式化可能适用于广泛的重要现实生活产品和流程设计挑战。这项工作将帮助我们更快、更有效地设计健壮的开放系统，并将特别帮助学生和教育工作者提供一个全面的和组织良好的知识库的开放系统协调和异常处理的专业知识。 它将为复杂的合同开发谈判算法，这是一个与从定义电子商务到飞机设计等领域相关的挑战。 调查结果将通过网络软件和传统媒体广泛传播。

Open software systems made up of independently developed components interacting using agreed-upon protocols represent one of the most promising approaches for supporting applications where organizations of all kinds, which often have not previously worked together, must be assembled and reconfigured within small time frames on the infrastructures at hand (e.g., coalition military forces, disaster recovery operations, supply chains, collaborative engineering projects, and electronic marketplaces). Ensuring that such systems are reliable is a challenge; the very openness that makes open systems attractive places them in a realm where the potential failure modes ('exceptions') and associated exception handling techniques are numerous and often far from obvious. Components may not operate correctly; they may lie to get an advantage, even act maliciously. We cannot view or manipulate their code or internal state. And since there is no one component 'in charge', we must be prepared to deal with emergent problems with non-local causes and effects. The problems are exacerbated by the wide range of possible open system interaction protocols, ranging from constraint satisfaction to markets to swarms, each with their own unique set of potential exceptions and relevant handlers. Unfortunately, existing techniques do little to help us design more reliable open systems; designers must rely on their experience and intuition to determine what exceptions apply to their particular system, and how those exceptions can best be addressed. In this project, the PI will tackle this gap by helping groups of collaborating software designers rapidly search through the vast space of possible open system designs for ones that they agree will be reliable and effective for their particular application. To do this, he will integrate and extend two powerful innovations that have not been applied in software engineering contexts heretofore. The first is a taxonomically organized knowledge base of open system coordination mechanisms, with each mechanism linked to its characteristic exceptions and each exception linked to its possible handlers. This knowledge base defines, by delineating a set of orthogonal design dimensions, a very large space of possible open system designs. The second innovation is a family of negotiation algorithms that help designers with diverse interests rapidly converge on pareto-optimal (win-win) design agreements in such large nonlinear design spaces. Very little work has been done to date on nonlinear negotiation (i.e., negotiation with interdependent issues), and this work has focused exclusively on "flat" design spaces (with a static set of predefined design dimensions). This project will push forward our understanding of how to find pareto-optimal solutions with taxonomically structured design spaces, a formalization that is potentially applicable to a wide range of important real-life product and process design challenges.Broader Impacts: This work will help us design robust open systems more quickly and effectively, and will in particular help students and educators by providing a comprehensive and well-organized knowledge base of open system coordination and exception handling expertise. It will develop negotiation algorithms for complex contracts, a challenge relevant to domains ranging from defining electronic commerce to airplane design. The results will be broadly disseminated, via web-accessible software as well as traditional media.