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Compositional performance abstractions of software connectors

Published: 22 April 2012 Publication History

Abstract

Typically, to provide accurate predictions, a performance model has to include low-level details such as used communication infrastructure, or connectors and influence of the underlying middleware platform. In order to profit from the research on inter-component communication and connector design, performance prediction approaches need to include models of different kinds of connectors. It is not always feasible to model complex connectors with all their details. The choice of suitable abstraction filter, which reduces the amount of detailed information needed with respect to the model purpose, is crucial to decrease modelling effort. We propose an approach by which an abstract connector model can be augmented with selected adaptations and enhancements using model completions to result in a more detailed connector model. As the purpose of our models is performance prediction, we designed a suitable abstraction filter based on the Pipes & Filters pattern to produce performance models of connectors. Thus, we need to characterize only a small set of compositional and reusable transformations. The selection of applied transformations is then based on the feature-oriented design of the connector's completion.

References

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S. Balsamo, A. Di Marco, P. Inverardi, and M. Simeoni. Model-Based Performance Prediction in Software Development: A Survey. Transactions on Software Engineering, 30(5):295--310, May 2004.
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S. Becker, H. Koziolek, and R. Reussner. The Palladio component model for model-driven performance prediction. 82:3--22, 2009.
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T. Bures and F. Plasil. Composing connectors of elements. Technical Report 3, Dep. of SW Engineering, Charles University, Prague, May 2003.
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F. Buschmann. Pattern-oriented software architecture, volume 1: A system of patterns. Wiley, Chichester {u.a.}, repr. edition, 2007.
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L. Kapova and T. Goldschmidt. Automated feature model-based generation of refinement transformations. In Proceedings of the 35th EUROMICRO Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications (SEAA). IEEE, 2009.
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N. R. Mehta, N. Medvidovic, and S. Phadke. Towards a taxonomy of software connectors. In ICSE '00: Proceedings of the 22nd international conference on Software engineering, pages 178--187, New York, NY, USA, 2000. ACM.
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Object Management Group. MOF 2.0 Query/View/Transformation, version 1.0, Apr. 2008.
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Cited By

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  • (2014)A Systematic Approach for Composing General Middleware Completions to Performance ModelsComputer Performance Engineering10.1007/978-3-319-10885-8_3(30-44)Online publication date: 2014

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Larry Bernstein

Software architects need to model their work so that their synthesized systems may be analyzed in terms of performance, and this paper explains how to do just that. The work is based on software known as the Palladio Component Model (PCM) and the paper adds insights on modeling connectors. I wish I had first read its second reference before I tackled the paper. You could also get excellent background information from the Web. The connector abstractions in section 3, highlighted by figure 1, give the reader a terrific understanding of the nature of connectors and how they can be implemented. This is similar to Unix's famed pipes and filter pattern, which readers will want to be familiar with to understand this paper. A firm foundation in software architecture and models will also be important for reading this paper. It is not for the faint of heart. Professionals in software engineering will want to study it carefully to understand the interaction of components with their connectors. A connector in the authors' model is "a consumer with regard to its predecessor and a producer with regard to its successor, while the pipes are the bounded buffers in between," according to a description in section 2. With this information, an architect may reduce a design to a set of interconnected parts. In section 5, the authors note that this work was driven by a need to establish "a design time performance redetection." I wish the authors showed how to do such predictions, although perhaps they are leaving that for a future paper. I think there is also a need to integrate basic queueing theory into their model, particularly with respect to the multiple pipes connection components-to-components in figure 1. The paper is a well written and highly technical, aimed at true software engineering professionals who are eager to do analysis as well as design. You will profit by reading and understanding it and the PCM. Online Computing Reviews Service

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cover image ACM Conferences
ICPE '12: Proceedings of the 3rd ACM/SPEC International Conference on Performance Engineering
April 2012
362 pages
ISBN:9781450312028
DOI:10.1145/2188286
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Published: 22 April 2012

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Author Tags

  1. connectors
  2. model completions
  3. performance abstractions

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  • (2014)A Systematic Approach for Composing General Middleware Completions to Performance ModelsComputer Performance Engineering10.1007/978-3-319-10885-8_3(30-44)Online publication date: 2014

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