Model-driven Engineering Techniques for Dependable Adaptive Software Systems

软件系统是当今我们现代社会多样化活动的支柱，包括交通、通信、健康和娱乐。除了其固有的复杂性，这些系统越来越多地部署在高度动态的运行时平台上(例如云计算)，并且它们与不确定的环境(例如网络物理系统)交互。在这方面，软件系统的设计应具有适应能力，并应不断核实严格的可靠性要求。 模型驱动的软件工程(MDE)现在是一种成熟的方法，它以设计时建模为中心来支持处理软件系统的复杂性。随着运行时模型概念的出现，MDE技术可以扩展到支持适应性软件系统的工程。然而，使用这些运行时模型来支持和管理自适应软件系统的可靠性仍然面临几个具有挑战性的问题。首先，我们指出，与众多用于设计时建模的标准框架相比，缺乏支持运行时可靠性建模的特定框架。有了构建这种模型的框架，就需要高效的分析技术，这些技术能够使用可靠性运行时模型来生成最优的适应。第三，可靠性要求是一个多维概念，包括可用性、可靠性、安全性和性能等多个维度，仅举几例。这些都是相互依存、相互关联和可能相互冲突的方面。因此，一方面保持可靠性运行时模型的一致性，并且在整个系统适配过程中与运行的系统持续同步，这是具有挑战性的。 在这个研究项目中，我们建议利用模型驱动的软件工程方法和运行时模型的概念来定义、开发和验证建模技术，以支持可靠的自适应软件系统的开发和管理。

Software systems are nowadays the backbone of our modern society diverse activities, including transportation, communication, health, and entertainment. In addition to their inherent complexity, these systems are more and more deployed on highly dynamic runtime platforms (e.g. Cloud Computing) and they interface with an uncertain environment (e.g. Cyber-Physical Systems). In this context, the software systems should be designed with an adaptation capacity and should continuously verify stringent dependability requirements. Model-driven software engineering (MDE) is now a well-established approach, which is centered on design-time modeling to support coping with the software system complexity. With the emergence of the models at runtime concept, MDE techniques can be extended to support the engineering of adaptive software systems. However, using these runtime models to support and manage the dependability of adaptive software systems still faces several challenging issues. First, we point to the lack of specific framework to support runtime dependability modeling in contrast to the numerous standard frameworks for design-time modeling. Having the framework to build such models, there is a need for efficient analysis techniques, which enable using the dependability runtime models to generate optimal adaptations. Third, the dependability requirement is a multidimensional concept encompassing several dimensions including availability, reliability, safety, and performance to mention just a few. These are inter-dependent, inter-related and potentially conflicting dimensions. As a consequence, keeping the dependability runtime model consistent on one hand and also continuously synchronized with the running system throughout the system adaptions is challenging. In this research program, we propose to leverage the model-driven software engineering approach combined with the models at runtime concept in order to define, develop and validate modeling techniques to support the development and management of dependable adaptive software systems.