Application Architecture Design for an Industrial Service Company

Työssä oli tavoitteena suunnitella globaali sovellusarkkitehtuuri, joka ohjaa teollisen huoltoyrityksen sovellusten kehitystyötä. Sovellusarkkitehtuuri kuvaa tietokoneohjelmien toiminnallisuuteen loppukäyttäjien näkökulmasta ja sen laatiminen on osa strategista tietojärjestelmäsuunnittelua. Arkkitehtuurin tehtävänä on varmistaa, että tietojärjestelmät suunnitellaan kokonaisuutena tukemaan organisaation toimintaa. Arkkitehtuurin tekemistä ohjasi strategisen tietojärjestelmäsuunnittelun periatteet ja mallit. Tekniikat olivat samoja kuin projektikohtaisessa tietojärjestelmäsuunnittelussa. Sovellusarkkitehtuurin tekeminen alkoi tutustumalla yrityksessä vallitsevaan tilanteeseen sekä liiketoiminta- ja tietotekniikkastrategioihin. Tarkastelun kohteena olivat pääasiassa liiketoimintaprosessit ja käytössä olevat sovellukset. Tutustuminen tapahtui lähinnä haastatteluin ja dokumentteihin tutustumalla. Seuraavaksi johdettiin vaatimukset tulevaisuuden sovelluksille haastatteluista ja edellisen vaiheen materiaalin perusteella. Liiketoiminnan kannalta tärkeimmät vaatimukset valittiin täytettäväksi arkkitehtuurilla. Varsinaisen arkitehtuurin tekeminen oli lähinnä sovellusten valitsemisesta ja niiden keskinäisten suhteiden määrittelyä. Arkkitehtuurin perusteella määritettiin kehityshankeet.

Problems of the architecture design in the system integration

This thesis studies the problems and their reasons a software architect faces in his work. The purpose of the study is to search and identify potential factors causing problens in system integration and software engineering. Under a special interest are non-technical factors causing different kinds of problems. Thesis was executed by interviewing professionals that took part in e-commerce project in some corporation. Interviewed professionals consisted of architects from technical implementation projects, corporation's architect team leader, different kind of project managers and CRM manager. A specific theme list was used as an guidance of the interviews. Recorded interviews were transcribed and then classified using ATLAS.ti software. Basics of e-commerce, software engineering and system integration is described too. Differences between e-commerce and e-business as well as traditional business are represented as are basic types of e-commerce. Software's life span, general problems of software engineering and software design are covered concerning software engineering. In addition, general problems of the system integration and the special requirements set by e-commerce are described in the thesis. In the ending there is a part where the problems founded in study are described and some areas of software engineering where some development could be done so that same kind of problems could be avoided in the future.

Ecosystem architecture design: endogenous and exogenous structural properties

The aim of this dissertation is to bridge and synthesize the different streams of literature addressing ecosystem architecture through a multiple‐lens perspective. In addition, the structural properties of and processes to design and manage the architecture will be examined. With this approach, the oft‐neglected actor‐structure duality is addressed and both the position and structure, and action and process are under scrutiny. Further, the developed framework and empirical evidence offer valuable insights on how firms collectively create value and individually appropriate value. The dissertation is divided into two parts. The first part comprises a literature review, as well as the conclusions of the whole study, and the second part includes six research publications. The dissertation is based on three different reasoning logics: abduction, induction and deduction; related qualitative and quantitative methodologies are utilized in the empirical examination of the phenomenon in the information and communication technology industry. The results suggest firstly that there are endogenous and exogenous structural properties of the ecosystem architecture. Out of these, the former ones can be more easily influenced by a particular actor whereas the latter ones are taken more or less for granted. Secondly, the exogenous ecosystem design properties influence the value creation potential of the ecosystem whereas the endogenous ecosystem design properties influence the value appropriation potential of a particular actor in the ecosystem. Thirdly, the study suggests that there is a relationship between endogenous and exogenous structural properties in that the endogenous properties can be leveraged to create and reconfigure the exogenous properties whereas the exogenous properties prose opportunities and restrictions on the use of endogenous properties. In addition, the study suggests that there are different emergent and engineered processes to design and manage ecosystem architecture and to influence both the endogenous and exogenous structural properties of ecosystem architecture. This study makes three main contributions. First, on the conceptual level, it brings coherence and direction to the fast growing body of literature on novel inter‐organizational arrangements, such as ecosystems. It does this by bridging and synthetizing three different streams of literature, namely the boundary, design and orchestration conception. Secondly, it sets out a framework that enhances our understanding of the structural properties of ecosystem architecture; of the processes to design and manage ecosystem architecture; and of their influence on the value creation potential of the ecosystem and the value capture potential of a particular firm. Thirdly, it offers empirical evidence of the structural properties and processes.

Fractal geometry and architecture design: case study review

The idea of buildings in harmony with nature can be traced back to ancient times. The increasing concerns on sustainability oriented buildings have added new challenges in building architectural design and called for new design responses. Sustainable design integrates and balances the human geometries and the natural ones. As the language of nature, it is, therefore, natural to assume that fractal geometry could play a role in developing new forms of aesthetics and sustainable architectural design. This paper gives a brief description of fractal geometry theory and presents its current status and recent developments through illustrative review of some fractal case studies in architecture design, which provides a bridge between fractal geometry and architecture design.

Uniquitous internet middleware: architecture design and prototype evaluation

Technology advances in recent years have dramatically changed the way users exploit contents and services available on the Internet, by enforcing pervasive and mobile computing scenarios and enabling access to networked resources almost from everywhere, at anytime, and independently of the device in use. In addition, people increasingly require to customize their experience, by exploiting specific device capabilities and limitations, inherent features of the communication channel in use, and interaction paradigms that significantly differ from the traditional request/response one. So-called Ubiquitous Internet scenario calls for solutions that address many different challenges, such as device mobility, session management, content adaptation, context-awareness and the provisioning of multimodal interfaces. Moreover, new service opportunities demand simple and effective ways to integrate existing resources into new and value added applications, that can also undergo run-time modifications, according to ever-changing execution conditions. Despite service-oriented architectural models are gaining momentum to tame the increasing complexity of composing and orchestrating distributed and heterogeneous functionalities, existing solutions generally lack a unified approach and only provide support for specific Ubiquitous Internet aspects. Moreover, they usually target rather static scenarios and scarcely support the dynamic nature of pervasive access to Internet resources, that can make existing compositions soon become obsolete or inadequate, hence in need of reconfiguration. This thesis proposes a novel middleware approach to comprehensively deal with Ubiquitous Internet facets and assist in establishing innovative application scenarios. We claim that a truly viable ubiquity support infrastructure must neatly decouple distributed resources to integrate and push any kind of content-related logic outside its core layers, by keeping only management and coordination responsibilities. Furthermore, we promote an innovative, open, and dynamic resource composition model that allows to easily describe and enforce complex scenario requirements, and to suitably react to changes in the execution conditions.

An abstract machine based execution model for computer architecture design and efficient implementation of logic programs in parallel.

The term "Logic Programming" refers to a variety of computer languages and execution models which are based on the traditional concept of Symbolic Logic. The expressive power of these languages offers promise to be of great assistance in facing the programming challenges of present and future symbolic processing applications in Artificial Intelligence, Knowledge-based systems, and many other areas of computing. The sequential execution speed of logic programs has been greatly improved since the advent of the first interpreters. However, higher inference speeds are still required in order to meet the demands of applications such as those contemplated for next generation computer systems. The execution of logic programs in parallel is currently considered a promising strategy for attaining such inference speeds. Logic Programming in turn appears as a suitable programming paradigm for parallel architectures because of the many opportunities for parallel execution present in the implementation of logic programs. This dissertation presents an efficient parallel execution model for logic programs. The model is described from the source language level down to an "Abstract Machine" level suitable for direct implementation on existing parallel systems or for the design of special purpose parallel architectures. Few assumptions are made at the source language level and therefore the techniques developed and the general Abstract Machine design are applicable to a variety of logic (and also functional) languages. These techniques offer efficient solutions to several areas of parallel Logic Programming implementation previously considered problematic or a source of considerable overhead, such as the detection and handling of variable binding conflicts in AND-Parallelism, the specification of control and management of the execution tree, the treatment of distributed backtracking, and goal scheduling and memory management issues, etc. A parallel Abstract Machine design is offered, specifying data areas, operation, and a suitable instruction set. This design is based on extending to a parallel environment the techniques introduced by the Warren Abstract Machine, which have already made very fast and space efficient sequential systems a reality. Therefore, the model herein presented is capable of retaining sequential execution speed similar to that of high performance sequential systems, while extracting additional gains in speed by efficiently implementing parallel execution. These claims are supported by simulations of the Abstract Machine on sample programs.

Emergency management in the highways of the future. A performance-based multilayered ITS architecture design proposal

Emergency management is one of the key aspects within the day-to-day operation procedures in a highway. Efficiency in the overall response in case of an incident is paramount in reducing the consequences of any incident. However, the approach of highway operators to the issue of incident management is still usually far from a systematic, standardized way. This paper attempts to address the issue and provide several hints on why this happens, and a proposal on how the situation could be overcome. An introduction to a performance based approach to a general system specification will be described, and then applied to a particular road emergency management task. A real testbed has been implemented to show the validity of the proposed approach. Ad-hoc sensors (one camera and one laser scanner) were efficiently deployed to acquire data, and advanced fusion techniques applied at the processing stage to reach the specific user requirements in terms of functionality, flexibility and accuracy.

School of Architecture & Design

Emil Lorch & Associates, architect. Built in 1928. Architecture Building; later called Architecture & Design; renamed Lorch Hall ca. 1980. The Doric columns were once part of the oldest stone building in Detroit, the Bank of Michigan, built 1836. The Corinthian column was from the Home Office Bldg. of the Mutural Benefit Life Insurance Co. of Newark, N.J.

Architecture & Design

Emil Lorch & Associates, architect. Built in 1928. Architecture Building; later called Architecture & Design; renamed Lorch Hall ca. 1980

Architecture & Design

Emil Lorch & Associates, architect. Built in 1928. Architecture Building; later called Architecture & Design; renamed Lorch Hall ca. 1980. Classical columns acquired through Dean Emil Lorch. The Doric columns were once part of the oldest stone building in Detroit, the Bank of Michigan, built 1836. The Corinthian column was from the Home Office Bldg. of the Mutural Benefit Life Insurance Co. of Newark, N.J.

Refinement methods for software architecture design using the software architecture model

Modern software systems are often large and complicated. To better understand, develop, and manage large software systems, researchers have studied software architectures that provide the top level overall structural design of software systems for the last decade. One major research focus on software architectures is formal architecture description languages, but most existing research focuses primarily on the descriptive capability and puts less emphasis on software architecture design methods and formal analysis techniques, which are necessary to develop correct software architecture design. ^ Refinement is a general approach of adding details to a software design. A formal refinement method can further ensure certain design properties. This dissertation proposes refinement methods, including a set of formal refinement patterns and complementary verification techniques, for software architecture design using Software Architecture Model (SAM), which was developed at Florida International University. First, a general guideline for software architecture design in SAM is proposed. Second, specification construction through property-preserving refinement patterns is discussed. The refinement patterns are categorized into connector refinement, component refinement and high-level Petri nets refinement. These three levels of refinement patterns are applicable to overall system interaction, architectural components, and underlying formal language, respectively. Third, verification after modeling as a complementary technique to specification refinement is discussed. Two formal verification tools, the Stanford Temporal Prover (STeP) and the Simple Promela Interpreter (SPIN), are adopted into SAM to develop the initial models. Fourth, formalization and refinement of security issues are studied. A method for security enforcement in SAM is proposed. The Role-Based Access Control model is formalized using predicate transition nets and Z notation. The patterns of enforcing access control and auditing are proposed. Finally, modeling and refining a life insurance system is used to demonstrate how to apply the refinement patterns for software architecture design using SAM and how to integrate the access control model. ^ The results of this dissertation demonstrate that a refinement method is an effective way to develop a high assurance system. The method developed in this dissertation extends existing work on modeling software architectures using SAM and makes SAM a more usable and valuable formal tool for software architecture design. ^