Software Design and Quality: News http://sdq.ipd.kit.edu/ Latest news on software architecture, software design, component-based software engineering, software performance engineering, and software quality. Brought to you directly from Universität Karlsruhe (TH), Karlsruhe Institue of Technology (KIT) en Software Design and Quality: News http://sdq.ipd.kit.edu/fileadmin/templates/kit/images/SDQ-Logo-new.png http://sdq.ipd.kit.edu/ 160 80 Latest news on software architecture, software design, component-based software engineering, software performance engineering, and software quality. Brought to you directly from Universität Karlsruhe (TH), Karlsruhe Institue of Technology (KIT) TYPO3 - get.content.right http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Thu, 05 Aug 2010 08:48:00 +0200 Paper accepted for the Journal of Empirical Software Engineering http://sdq.ipd.kit.edu/press_releases/single_view/article/paper-accepted-for-the-journal-of-empirical-software-engineering/ A new paper on a series of experiments on monolithic and component-based performance evaluation of software architectures was accepted for the Springer's Journal of Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE). The paper "From Monolithic to Component-based Performance Evaluation of Software Architectures -- A Series of Experiments Analysing Accuracy and Effort" by Anne Martens, Heiko Koziolek, Lutz Prechelt and Ralf Reussner will be published within the EMSE special issue on Empirical Studies in Software Architecture: Opportunities, Approaches, and Challenges, edited by M. Ali Babar, Patricia Lago and Arie van Deursen.

Abstract of the paper:

Background: Model-based performance evaluation methods for software architectures can help architects to assess design alternatives and save costs for late life-cycle performance fixes. A recent trend is component-based performance modelling, which aims at creating reusable performance models; a number of such methods have been proposed during the last decade. Their accuracy and the needed effort for modelling are heavily influenced by human factors, which are so far hardly understood empirically.

Objective: Do component-based methods allow to make performance predictions with a comparable accuracy while saving effort in a reuse scenario? We examined three monolithic methods (SPE, umlPSI, Capacity Planning (CP)) and one component-based performance evaluation method (PCM) with regard to their accuracy and effort from the viewpoint of method users.

Methods: We conducted a series of three experiments (with different levels of control) involving 47 computer science students. In the first experiment, we compared the applicability of the monolithic methods in order to choose one of them for comparison. In the second experiment, we compared the accuracy and effort of this monolithic and the component-based method for the model creation case. In the third, we studied the effort reduction from reusing component-based models. Data were collected based on the resulting artefacts, questionnaires and screen recording. They were analysed using hypothesis testing, linear models, and analysis of variance.

Results: For the monolithic methods, we found that using SPE and CP resulted in accurate predictions, while umlPSI produced over-estimates. Comparing the component-based method PCM with SPE, we found that creating reusable models using PCM takes more (but not drastically more) time than using SPE and that participants can create accurate models with both techniques. Finally, we found that reusing PCM models can save time, because effort to reuse can be explained by a model that is independent of the inner complexity of a component.

Limitations: The tasks performed in our experiments reflect only a subset of the actual activities when applying model-based performance evaluation methods in a software development process. Conclusions: Our results indicate that sufficient prediction accuracy can be achieved with both monolithic and component-based methods, and that the higher effort for component-based performance modelling will indeed pay off when the component models incorporate and hide a sufficient amount of complexity.

BibTex and Preprint Version: The bibtex entry can be found here, the author-created preprint version can be found here. The final publication will be available at www.springerlink.com.

]]> Thu, 05 Aug 2010 08:48:00 +0200 FZI Prize "Best Diploma Thesis" http://sdq.ipd.kit.edu/press_releases/single_view/article/fzi-prize-best-diploma-thesis/ Fabian Brosig from the Descartes Research Group wins the FZI Prize "Best Diploma Thesis" Fabian Brosig from the Descartes Research Group was awarded the FZI (Forschungszentrum Informatik) Prize "Best Diploma Thesis" for his diploma thesis with the title "Automated Extraction of Palladio Component Models from Running Enterprise Java Applications" supervised by Samuel Kounev and Klaus Krogmann. The work of the thesis was carried out in close cooperation with Oracle Corp. The thesis presents an approach for automated extraction of performance models (Palladio Component Models) of Java EE applications, based on monitoring data collected during operation. The model extraction method is evaluated in the context of a case study with a real-world enterprise application and demonstrates that the existing gap between low-level monitoring data and high-level performance models can be closed.

The results of the thesis were published in the following two papers available online:

Fabian Brosig, Samuel Kounev, and Klaus Krogmann. Automated Extraction of Palladio Component Models from Running Enterprise Java Applications. In Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Run-time mOdels for Self-managing Systems and Applications (ROSSA 2009). In conjunction with Fourth International Conference on Performance Evaluation Methodologies and Tools (VALUETOOLS 2009), Pisa, Italy, October 19, 2009.  ACM, New York, NY, USA, October 2009. [ bib | .pdf ]

Fabian Brosig, Samuel Kounev, and Charles Paclat. Using WebLogic Diagnostics Framework to Enable Performance Prediction for Java EE Applications. Oracle Technology Network (OTN) Article, September 2009. [ bib | .html ]

Fabian Brosig is a research assistant in the Descartes Research Group at KIT which is part of the Chair for Software Design and Quality.

]]> nikolaus.huber@kit.edu Tue, 20 Jul 2010 08:23:00 +0200 MDSD survey press coverage http://sdq.ipd.kit.edu/press_releases/single_view/article/mdsd-survey-press-coverage/ An article about the MDSD survey conducted by the FZI has been published on heise online. Mon, 21 Jun 2010 11:06:00 +0200 CFP for ICPE 2011 available http://sdq.ipd.kit.edu/press_releases/single_view/article/cfp-for-icpe-2011-available/ The Call-for-Papers for the 2nd ACM/SPEC International Conference on Performance Engineering (ICPE 2011) to be held in Karlsruhe from March 14-16, 2011 is now available. The Call-for-Papers is available at the conference web site: http://www.icpe-conference.org/

Various different kinds of papers are sought: basic and applied research, industrial applications and experience reports, work-in-progress and vision papers, as well as poster, demo and tutorial proposals with different criteria for each category. Accepted papers will be published by ACM and included in the ACM Digital Library. Extended versions of selected papers will be considered for publication in a Special Issue of a leading peer-reviewed journal. The best conference paper will receive a Best Paper Award.

The paper submission deadline for the research track is September 18, 2010. For the industrial applications and experience track October 18, 2010.

An A3 poster can be downloaded from http://icpe2011.ipd.kit.edu/call_for_papers_pdf/

]]> kounev@kit.edu Fri, 04 Jun 2010 10:50:00 +0200 Zoya Durdik wins the Comparch Young Investigator Award http://sdq.ipd.kit.edu/press_releases/single_view/article/zoya-durdik-wins-the-comparch-young-investigator-award/ The award is the only international young investigator award in the areas of component based software engineering and software architecture quality. Zoya Durdik, working as a researcher at the FZI subgroup of SDQ won the award for her paper "Architectural Modeling in Agile Methods" at the Workshop on Component Oriented Programming (WCOP 2010). The award ceremony took place at the conference dinner of the CompArch conference at June 24th 2010 in Prague, CZ.

]]> Wed, 26 May 2010 10:52:00 +0200 Descartes Vision Paper to be presented at IEEE SCC 2010 http://sdq.ipd.kit.edu/press_releases/single_view/article/descartes-vision-paper-to-be-presented-at-ieee-scc-2010/ The paper "Towards self-aware performance and resource management in modern service-oriented systems" will be published at the 7th IEEE SCC 2010. The long-term vision and approach of the Descartes research project "Towards self-aware performance and resource management in modern service-oriented systems" by Samuel Kounev, Fabian Brosig, Nikolaus Huber, and Ralf Reussner will be presented as part of the Work-In-Progress Track at the 7th International Conference on Services Computing 2010. For more information see http://conferences.computer.org/scc/2010/program.html

Abstract:
Modern service-oriented systems have increasingly complex loosely-coupled architectures that often exhibit poor performance and resource efficiency and have high operating costs. This is due to the inability to predict at run-time the effect of dynamic changes in the system environment (e.g., varying service workloads) and adapt the system configuration accordingly. In this paper, we describe a long-term vision and approach for designing systems with built-in self-aware performance and resource management capabilities. We advocate the use of architecture-level performance models extracted dynamically from the evolving system configuration and maintained automatically during operation. The models will be exploited at run-time to adapt the system to changes in the environment ensuring that resources are utilized efficiently and performance requirements are continuously satisfied.

[ bib ]

]]> samuel.kounev@kit.edu Wed, 19 May 2010 15:42:00 +0200 New paper on stochastic modeling of publish/subscribe systems http://sdq.ipd.kit.edu/press_releases/single_view/article/mdd-30-copy-1/ "Stochastic Performance Analysis and Capacity Planning of Publish/Subscribe Systems" by Arnd Schröter, Gero Mühl, Samuel Kounev, Helge Parzyjegla and Jan Richling will be presented at DEBS 2010. The paper "Stochastic Performance Analysis and Capacity Planning of Publish/Subscribe Systems" by Arnd Schröter, Gero Mühl, Samuel Kounev, Helge Parzyjegla and Jan Richling has been accepted for publication at the 4th ACM International Conference on Distributed Event-Based Systems (DEBS 2010) to be held in Cambridge, United Kingdom from July 12-15, 2010 [ bib ]. The paper is a result of a collaboration of the Technical University of Berlin and the University of Rostock with the Descartes Research Group.

The paper presents a set of generalized and comprehensive analytical models of publish/subscribe systems employing different peer-to-peer and hierarchical routing schemes. The proposed analytical models address the major limitations underlying existing work in the area and are the first to consider all major performance-relevant system metrics including the expected broker and link utilization, the expected notification delay, the expected time required for new subscriptions to become fully active, as well as the expected routing table sizes and message rates. The models can be used by system developers to identify and eliminate performance bottlenecks before a system is deployed as well as for sizing and capacity planning.

]]> nikolaus.huber@kit.edu Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:36:00 +0200 MDD 3.0 http://sdq.ipd.kit.edu/press_releases/single_view/article/mdd-30-introduced/ The SDQ group introduces a third-generation approach to Model-driven Development. MDD is growing into a new dimension. We distinguish three generations of MDD tools. First generation tools provide support for the creation of a graphical representation for the models, reverse engineering and generation of structural code skeletons. In the second generation, support for classical view on MDD was introduced. This generation builds on the automated support for forward engineering going from platform-independent models to platform-specific models and code. In the third generation, the final model-to-model transformations are runtime entities known and created at runtime. The transformation is not a way to create the final product – it is the final product itself. We identified an application domain for MDD 3.0. A prototypical implementation (based on higher-order transformations (HOTs)) and experience reports about this approach are included in the Chilies project.

]]> Mon, 26 Apr 2010 19:36:00 +0200 [DE] MeRegioMobil auf der Hannover Messe 2010 http://sdq.ipd.kit.edu/press_releases/single_view/article/de-meregiomobil-auf-der-hannover-messe-2010/ Das Projekt MeRegioMobil ist mit einem Demonstrator auf der Hannover Messe 2010 vertreten, der im Rahmen des Kompetenzzentrums E-Energy gezeigt wird (Halle 13, Stand C51). Der Demonstrator zeigt ein Smart Home, dass dank eines rückspeisefähigem Elektroautos in der Lage ist die Spitzenlast im Stromnetz zu reduzieren. Das IPD Reussner war aktiv an der Entwicklung der Software für den Demonstrator beteiligt.

]]> Wed, 21 Apr 2010 18:33:00 +0200 QoSA papers accepted http://sdq.ipd.kit.edu/press_releases/single_view/article/qosa-papers-accepted/ Four SDQ papers have been accepted by Quality of Software Architectures Conference Four SDQ papers have been accepted by the 6th International Conference on the Quality of Software Architectures in Prague, June 23-25, 2010.

  • Franz Brosch, Heiko Koziolek, Bara Buhnova and Ralf Reussner. Parameterized Reliability Prediction for Component-based Software Architectures
  • Anne Martens, Danilo Ardagna, Heiko Koziolek, Raffaela Mirandola and Ralf Reussner. A Hybrid Approach for Multi-Attribute QoS Optimisation in Component-Based Software Systems
  • Jens Happe, Dennis Westermann, Kai Sachs and Lucia Kapova. Statistical Inference of Software Performance Models for Parametric Performance Completions
  • Lucia Kapova, Thomas Goldschmidt, Steffen Becker and Joerg Henss. Evaluating Maintainability with Code Metrics for Model-to-Model Transformations
]]> Tue, 06 Apr 2010 11:36:00 +0200 [DE] Exkursion zum IBM Forschungs- und Entwicklungslabor in Böblingen http://sdq.ipd.kit.edu/press_releases/single_view/article/exkursion-zum-ibm-forschungs-und-entwicklungslabor-in-boeblingen/ June 29th, 2010 in Karlsruhe/Böblingen, Germany Programm für 29. Juni:

  • 09:30 Erfrischungen
  • 10:00 Begrüßung
  • 10:15 Life @ IBM
  • 11:00 IBM Highend Server
  • 12:00 IBM Betriebssysteme
  • 13:00 Mittagessen
  • 14:00 Führung Rechenzentrum
  • 15:00 Chip Test
  • 16:00 IBM Academic Initiative
  • 16:45 Abschluss

Die Veranstaltung beginnt um 09:30 Uhr und endet gegen 17:00 Uhr (Abfahrt mit dem Bus von der Uni um 8:20).
Die Teilnahme ist komplett kostenfrei. Für Essen und Trinken ist gesorgt.
Anmeldung unter sdq(at)ipd.uka.de!

]]> Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:30:00 +0100 GFFT Prize "Best Diploma Thesis" http://sdq.ipd.kit.edu/press_releases/single_view/article/gfft-preis-beste-diplomarbeit/ Diploma thesis of the SDQ Group awarded as "Best Diploma Thesis" The jury of the Gemeinnützigen Gesellschaft zur Förderung des Forschungstransfers e.V. (GFFT e.V.) awarded the prize "Best Diploma Thesis" to the diploma thesis "Peformance Modeling of Storage Virtualization". Written by Nikolaus Huber, this diploma thesis resulted from a cooperation of the FZI Karlsruhe and the IBM Research & Development GmbH. Further information on this cooperation is available here.

Nikolaus Huber is a research assistant in the Descartes Research Group at KIT which is part of the Chair for Software Design and Quality.

]]> samuel.kounev@kit.edu Sat, 13 Feb 2010 15:27:00 +0100 New working group on benchmarking research established at SPEC http://sdq.ipd.kit.edu/press_releases/single_view/article/new-working-group-on-benchmarking-research-established-at-spec/ The Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) has formed a new working group with the goal to establish a new SPEC Research Committee. The Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) has formed a new working group with the goal to establish a new SPEC Research Committee whose mission will be to promote cutting-edge research on benchmarking methodologies and tools facilitating the development of benchmark suites and performance analysis frameworks for established and newly emerging technologies. Benchmarking, in this context, is understood in a broader sense covering any techniques and tools related to performance measurement, load testing, profiling and workload characterization. The working group will be coordinated by Samuel Kounev and Kai Sachs.

]]> kounev@kit.edu Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:23:00 +0100 Preliminary Announcement of ICPE 2011 (WOSP/SIPEW 2011) http://sdq.ipd.kit.edu/press_releases/single_view/article/preliminary-announcement-of-icpe-2011-wospsipew-2011/ WOSP/SIPEW International Conference on Performance Engineering (ICPE) is about to be established as a regular event. Following the successful 1st Joint WOSP/SIPEW International Conference on Performance Engineering (ICPE), the conference is now about to be established as a regular event sponsored by ACM in cooperation with SPEC with a 12 month cycle. The next conference is planned to be held in Karlsruhe (Germany) from March 14-16 subject to approval by ACM and SPEC. From the Descartes Research Group, Nikolaus Huber and Fabian Brosig will be serving as local arrangement chairs. A preliminary announcement is available at http://www.inf.pucrs.br/wosp/materials/wosp-sipew-2011.pdf

]]> kounev@kit.edu Sat, 30 Jan 2010 21:14:00 +0100 [DE] Software-Cluster erhält Zuschlag beim Spitzencluster-Wettbewerb http://sdq.ipd.kit.edu/press_releases/single_view/article/de-software-cluster-erhaelt-zuschlag-beim-spitzencluster-wettbewerb/ KIT-Informatiker beteiligt – Förderung beträgt 40 Millionen für die nächsten fünf Jahre Bundesforschungsministerin Annette Schavan hat am 26. Januar die Sieger der zweiten Runde des Spitzencluster-Wettbewerbs bekannt gegeben. Die fünf Gewinner fördert das Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) mit insgesamt bis zu 200 Millionen Euro über fünf Jahre. Unter den Gewinnern des Wettbewerbs ist auch Europas größtes Softwarecluster „Softwareinnovationen für das digitale Unternehmen“ unter starker Beteiligung der Informatikfakultät des KIT.

Das „Software-Cluster“ gilt als „Silicon Valley“ Europas und erstreckt sich über die Zentren Darmstadt, Kaiserslautern, Karlsruhe, Saarbrücken und Walldorf. Ziel des Clusters - das als einziges Software-Cluster in Deutschland von BMBF gefördert wird - ist es, die technologische und methodische Erforschung und Entwicklung von Softwarelösungen für digitale Unternehmen voranzutreiben. Auf Karlsruher Seite hatten Wissenschaftler der Fakultät für Informatik am KIT einen großen Anteil an der Vorbereitung. „Das Cluster betont die maßgebliche Rolle von Unternehmenssoftware an der Wertschöpfung in Deutschland. Bei der steigenden Durchdringung von Software in allen Bereichen von modernen Unternehmen ist der Entwurf und Betrieb verlässlicher Software-Dienste ein wichtiges Ziel. Bei der Verwirklichung dieses Ziels sind die Karlsruher Forschungseinrichtungen ganz vorne mit dabei! “, so Professor Ralf Reussner, Prodekan der Fakultät. Partner des KIT im Software-Cluster sind das renommierte FZI sowie große deutsche Hersteller von Unternehmenssoftware wie IDS Scheer AG, SAP AG und Software AG, über 350 kleine und mittlere Unternehmen der Unternehmenssoftwarebranche, sowie die Informatikfakultäten der TU Darmstadt, der TU Kaiserslautern und der Universität des Saarlandes. Das Karlsruher Netzwerk CyberForum koordiniert die Aktivitäten für die Region Nordbaden.

Das KIT ist am Software-Cluster dank seiner international herausragenden Ausbildung und Forschung an der Karlsruher Informatikfakultät beteiligt. Gebündelt im neuen KIT-Schwerpunkt COMMputation sind das Steinbuch Centre for Computing (SCC), das Karlsruhe Service Research Institute (KSRI) sowie die Fakultät für Informatik in das Projekt eingebunden. Mit der Forschung zur Software-Entwicklung und besonders zum „Cloud Computing“ liefert das KIT entscheidende Impulse für ganz neue Formen von IT-Dienstangeboten, die eine bessere Kosteneffizienz und beschleunigte Innovationsprozesse in Unternehmen ermöglichen“, so Professor Wilfried Juling, Informatikprofessor und Direktor des SCC.

Weitere Informationen zum Software-Cluster unter: www.software-cluster.com

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