Relational architecture description language for software families

Software Product-Line Engineering has emerged in recent years, as an important strategy for maximising reuse within the context of a family of related products. In current approaches to software product-lines, there is general agreement that the definition of a reference-architecture for the product-line is an important step in the software engineering process. In this paper we introduce ADLARS, a new form of architecture Description language that places emphasis on the capture of architectural relationships. ADLARS is designed for use within a product-line engineering process. The language supports both the definition of architectural structure, and of important architectural relationships. In particular it supports capture of the relationships between product features, component and task architectures, interfaces and parameter requirements.

Towards an automated evaluation process for software architectures

Optimizing and editing enterprise software systems, after the implementation process has started, is widely recognized to be an expensive process. This has led to increasing emphasis on locating mistakes within software systems at the design stage, to help minimize development costs. There is increasing interest in the field of architecture evaluation techniques that can identify problems at the design stage, either within complete, or partially complete architectures. Most current techniques rely on manual review-based evaluation methods that require advanced skills from architects and evaluators. We are currently considering what a formal Architecture Description Language (ADL) can contribute to the process of architecture evaluation and validation. Our investigation is considering the inter-relationships between the activities performed during the architecture evaluation process, the characteristics an ADL should possess to support these activities, and the tools needed to provide convenient access to, and presentation of architectural information.

Derivation of scientific software from mathematical specifications

Often the modification and enhancement of large scientific software systems are severely hampered because many components of the system are written in an implementation dependent fashion, they are inadequately documented, and their functionalities are not precisely known. In this paper we consider how mathematics may be employed to alleviate some of these problems. In particular, we illustrate how the formal specification notation VDM-SL is being used to specify precisely abstract data types for use in the development of scientific software.

NanoStreams: Advancing the Hardware and Software Stack for Real-Time Analytics on Fast Data Streams

NanoStreams is a consortium project funded by the European Commission under its FP7 programme and is a major effort to address the challenges of processing vast amounts of data in real-time, with a markedly lower carbon footprint than the state of the art. The project addresses both the energy challenge and the high-performance required by emerging applications in real-time streaming data analytics. NanoStreams achieves this goal by designing and building disruptive micro-server solutions incorporating real-silicon prototype micro-servers based on System-on-Chip and reconfigurable hardware technologies.

A review of ADP processing software

Data processing is an essential part of Acoustic Doppler Profiler (ADP) surveys, which have become the standard tool in assessing flow characteristics at tidal power development sites. In most cases, further processing beyond the capabilities of the manufacturer provided software tools is required. These additional tasks are often implemented by every user in mathematical toolboxes like MATLAB, Octave or Python. This requires the transfer of the data from one system to another and thus increases the possibility of errors. The application of dedicated tools for visualisation of flow or geographic data is also often beneficial and a wide range of tools are freely available, though again problems arise from the necessity of transferring the data. Furthermore, almost exclusively PCs are supported directly by the ADP manufacturers, whereas small computing solutions like tablet computers, often running Android or Linux operating systems, seem better suited for online monitoring or data acquisition in field conditions. While many manufacturers offer support for developers, any solution is limited to a single device of a single manufacturer. A common data format for all ADP data would allow development of applications and quicker distribution of new post processing methodologies across the industry.

Software as a Service: Analysing Security Issues

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) is a type of software service delivery model which encompasses a broad range of business opportunities and challenges. Users and service providers are reluctant to integrate their business into SaaS due to its security concerns while at the same time they are attracted by its benefits. This article highlights SaaS utility and applicability in different environments like cloud computing, mobile cloud computing, software defined networking and Internet of things. It then embarks on the analysis of SaaS security challenges spanning across data security, application security and SaaS deployment security. A detailed review of the existing mainstream solutions to tackle the respective security issues mapping into different SaaS security challenges is presented. Finally, possible solutions or techniques which can be applied in tandem are presented for a secure SaaS platform.

Software-Managed Energy-Efficient Hybrid DRAM/NVM Main Memory

This paper evaluates the viability of user-level software management of a hybrid DRAM/NVM main memory system. We propose an operating system (OS) and programming interface to place data from within the user application. We present a profiling tool to help programmers decide on the placement of application data in hybrid memory systems. Cycle-accurate simulation of modified applications confirms that our approach is more energy-efficient than state-of-the- art hardware or OS approaches at equivalent performance. Moreover, our results are validated on several candidate NVM technologies and a wide set of 14 benchmarks.
The key observation behind this work is that, for the work- loads we evaluated, application objects are too short-lived to motivate migration. Utilizing this property significantly reduces the hardware complexity of hybrid memory systems.