Middleware/application interactions to support adaptive dependability

ABSTRACT

Today's software systems often face complex, challenging, and even contradicting requirements that cannot be jointly optimized. In order to achieve satisfying results, the systems have to adapt to changes of context and user needs during runtime. While such adaptivity can be supported by middleware, it typically requires interaction with the specific application to achieve this task. Well-known principles such as callback functions are straightforward to implement in, e.g., distributed object systems, but they are harder to achieve if the end user in front of a Web browser should be involved. Our contribution in this paper is twofold. First, we introduce to our concept of adaptive dependability and provide a solution for the issue of callbacks inWeb applications. Second, we contribute with a discussion and summary of several middleware/application interactions (MAI) we applied within our prototype implementations in several industrial settings. Thereby we prove our approach and show how several kinds of MAI mechanisms have to be combined in order to achieve the desired adaptivity. The experienced increase in complexity will have to be addressed by better integration and coordination of different mechanisms.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.4 PERFORMANCE OF SYSTEMS

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.3 INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL
      H.3.4 Systems and Software
          Subjects: Distributed systems
      H.3.5 On-line Information Services
          Subjects: Web-based services

General Terms:
Design, Reliability

Keywords:
availability, constraint consistency, dependability, integrity, middleware/application interaction, replication, web