MoSAiC - Model-Integrating Self-Adaptive Components

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Jürgen Ebert; Professor Dr. Gregor Engels
• Subject Area: Software Engineering and Programming Languages
• Term: from 2014 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 243343239

Models and components are two well-accepted concepts in modern software engineering to support the development, adaptation, and evolution of software systems and to manage the complexity of software systems. Although in both, in model-based and in model-driven software development, models and code are managed simultaneously, these appraoches often lead to inconsistencies between the two levels. Furthermore, the concept of components is used primarily at the code level, such that this structuring element is missing at the model level.In this research project, a novel model integrating software development approach (Model-Integrating Development (MID)) shall be analyzed, which is based on a mainly non-redundant combination and integration of models and code in the form of model-integrating components (MoCos). In this way, important knowledge of the software is explicitly preserved and maintained at software evolution time. Here, the model part of a MoCo supports flexibility and comprehensibility of the component while the code part is responsible for the efficient realization, the use of standard software, and the connection to middleware. Thus, models may also be manipulated at runtime to support self-adaptation.In MoCos, models and code are both first class entities. The boundary between models and code in a MoCo shall remain movable in order to react to changing requirements or to add a desired functionality for self-adaptation in a flexible manner. For this purpose, code shall be generated from parts of the models (freezing), and parts of the code shall be transferable into models by reverse engineering (melting). Components of existing component models (e.g., OSGi components) shall also be transferable into MoCos, which enables the introduction of self-adaptation at the component level.For the exploration of this novel component realization concept, a number of basic research questions have to be analyzed in order to develop an extensive concept for MoCos. Two case studies from the fields of service-oriented architectures (SOAs) and (dynamic) software product lines (SPLs) shall demonstrate the feasibility of our approach.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants