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Model-Centric, Context-Aware Software Adaptation

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Software Engineering for Self-Adaptive Systems

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 5525))

Abstract

Software must be constantly adapted to changing requirements. The time scale, abstraction level and granularity of adaptations may vary from short-term, fine-grained adaptation to long-term, coarse-grained evolution. Fine-grained, dynamic and context-dependent adaptations can be particularly difficult to realize in long-lived, large-scale software systems. We argue that, in order to effectively and efficiently deploy such changes, adaptive applications must be built on an infrastructure that is not just model-driven, but is both model-centric and context-aware. Specifically, this means that high-level, causally-connected models of the application and the software infrastructure itself should be available at run-time, and that changes may need to be scoped to the run-time execution context.

We first review the dimensions of software adaptation and evolution, and then we show how model-centric design can address the adaptation needs of a variety of applications that span these dimensions. We demonstrate through concrete examples how model-centric and context-aware designs work at the level of application interface, programming language and runtime. We then propose a research agenda for a model-centric development environment that supports dynamic software adaptation and evolution.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Software Composition Group, University of Bern, Switzerland

    Oscar Nierstrasz, Marcus Denker & Lukas Renggli

Authors
  1. Oscar Nierstrasz
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  2. Marcus Denker
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  3. Lukas Renggli
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Michigan State University, 3115 Engineering Building, MI 48824-1226, East Lansing, USA

    Betty H. C. Cheng

  2. Computing Laboratory, Canterbury, University of Kent, CT2 7NF, Kent, UK

    Rogério de Lemos

  3. Hasso Plattner Institute for Software Systems Engineering Prof.-Dr., Helmert-Str. 2-3, 14482, Potsdam, Germany

    Holger Giese

  4. Dipartimento di Informatica, Università dell’Aquila, 67100, L’Aquila, Italy

    Paola Inverardi

  5. Department of Computing, Imperial College, 180 Queen’s Gate, SW7 2BZ, London, UK

    Jeff Magee

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Nierstrasz, O., Denker, M., Renggli, L. (2009). Model-Centric, Context-Aware Software Adaptation. In: Cheng, B.H.C., de Lemos, R., Giese, H., Inverardi, P., Magee, J. (eds) Software Engineering for Self-Adaptive Systems. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5525. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02161-9_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02161-9_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-02160-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-02161-9

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