Systematic and Automated Software Migration via Model-Driven Engineering

软件迁移是将软件应用程序从一种操作环境转换到另一种操作环境的过程。它影响到所有软件密集型行业，包括企业系统、航空电子设备、汽车——这些行业的操作系统、硬件、语言或框架可能会发生变化。迁移是昂贵的。英国合作银行在一个失败的移民项目上损失了15亿英镑。网景公司花了两年时间进行迁移，这导致了市场份额的损失，最终导致了公司的倒闭。许多实际的迁移问题都是手动处理的，需要大量开发人员的努力和很少的自动化支持。因此，软件迁移涉及耗时、重复和容易出错的任务。本提案所描述的工作将产生基于模型驱动工程（MDE）的新工具和理论，以支持从事软件迁移的工程师。它提供了工具来支持工程师自动化迁移任务，并支持工程师预测可能遇到的问题。研究的目标是开发和评估跨应用程序操作环境变更的软件迁移的技术和工具。这符合我的长期研究，重点是使用MDE自动化重复和容易出错的任务。我的研究将考虑由硬件或软件更改触发的广泛的迁移场景，以及软件迁移的新方法，该方法允许早期分析可能违反时间属性的行为。挑战(i)移徙情况多种多样，一般都是单独处理。（ii）针对特定迁移问题存在自动化支持，但不支持端到端过程。很少有人支持在移徙之前预测问题。关于何时可以部分支持移徙的指导基本上是不存在的。㈤对编程语言对与时间有关的移徙问题的影响了解甚少。我将在一系列不同的操作环境中构建迁移中反复出现的问题的新目录，并开发创新的可执行模型转换来解决这些问题。我将开发一种确定迁移“热点”的新方法，以及预测时间问题的新机制。我将制定新的指导方针，说明何时部分迁移是可能的/有益的。影响维护是软件工程中最昂贵的部分；当公司必须进行迁移时，建议的工作将产生生产力改进，从而降低总体成本。这项研究将导致软件迁移问题和模式的创新目录，以及预测迁移对软件时序特征影响的新机制。它将加强加拿大在学术界和工业界作为软件迁移领导者的地位，并将建立在加拿大大学和从事软件维护的公司之间的强大协同作用之上。

Background Software migration is the process of transforming software applications from one operating environment to another. It impacts on all software intensive industries, including enterprise systems, avionics, automotive - where operating systems, hardware, languages or frameworks may change. Migration is expensive. The Cooperative Bank UK lost GBP 1.5B on a failed migration project. Netscape spent 2 years on a migration which led to loss of market share and ultimately the collapse of the company. Many real-world migration problems are handled manually, with intensive developer effort and little automated support. Software migration thus involves time-consuming, repetitive and error-prone tasks. The work this proposal describes will produce novel tools and theories, based on Model-Driven Engineering (MDE), to support engineers engaged in software migration. It provides tools to support engineers in automating migration tasks and supporting engineers in predicting what problems may be encountered. Goal The goal of the research is to develop and evaluate techniques and tools for software migration across changes to application operating environments. This fits with my long-term research focusing on automating repetitive & error-prone tasks using MDE. My research will consider a broad set of migration scenarios triggered by hardware or software changes, as well as a new method for software migration that allows early analysis of potential violations of timing properties. Challenges (i) Migration scenarios are diverse and are generally tackled individually. (ii) Automated support exists for specific migration problems but not for an end-to-end process. (iii) There is little support for prediction of problems prior to migration. (iv) Guidance on when migration can be partially supported is largely non-existent. (v) The influence of programming language on migration problems related to timing is poorly understood. Research Outcomes and Directions I will build a novel catalogue of recurring problems in migration across a range of different operating environments, and develop innovative executable model transformations to address them. I will develop a new methodology identifying migration 'hotspots', as well as novel mechanisms for prediction of timing problems. I will develop new guidance on when partial migration may be possible/beneficial. Impact Maintenance is the most expensive part of software engineering; the proposed work will yield productivity improvements that will reduce overall costs when companies must undertake migration. The research will lead to an innovative catalogue of software migration problems and patterns, as well as new mechanisms for predicting the impact of migration on timing characteristics of software. It will strengthen Canada's position as a leader in software migration, both in academia and industry, and will build on strong synergies between Canadian universities and companies working in software maintenance.