Design Support Environments for Distributed Systems

Funded by: EPSRC

This project aimed to extend facilities for the design of multimedia distributed systems, to ensure that they can meet the needs of complex systems which will include the use of stream communication, multicasting and Quality of Service (QoS) constraints. The work augments the design environment with descriptions in sufficiently precise notations to enable assessments of designs to be made based on fitness for purpose, performance and functionality.

Distributed systems are complex and rely heavily on suitable design software to make them work. Modern distributed systems, such as multimedia conferencing and video distribution, must also conform to strict delivery constraints if they are to match the quality of broadcast media and home entertainment technologies. In order to reduce software development costs and to meet these requirements, it is important that software design tools encourage rather than limit the design of effective distributed systems.

The project built on the work of the Permabase project, funded by BT Networks and Systems which designed and produced prototypes for automated performance prediction for distributed systems.

Aims of the project:

Augment UML:
- To support specification and design of distributed multimedia systems by providing support for streams, Quality of Service and multicast
- To provide basis for predictions on performance and to ensure they meet QoS constraints
- To enable parts of system to be verified and to ensure that designs are internally consistent
Case studies to demonstrate and evaluate the techniques

Funding

The project was funded by EPSRC and was supported by BT Networks and Systems and by TriReme Object Technology.

People

Gill Waters (at the University of Kent), John Derrick (now at the University of Sheffield) and Behzad Bordbar (now at the University of Birminhgham)
David Akehurst (now in Dept. of Electronics, University of Kent web page).

Project Review

pdf file

Project Publications

A Viewpoints Approach to Designing Group Based Applications. D.H.Akehurst, A.G.Waters and J.Derrick. In proceedings Design, Analysis and Simulation of Distributed Systems, Advanced Simulation Technologies Conference, pages 83-93a, April 2004.
Verification of Timeliness QoS Properties in Multimedia Systems. (pdf file) B. Bordbar and K. Okano. In proceedings International Conference on Formal Engineerin g Methods (ICFEM), 2004.
Design and Verification of Distributed Multi-media Systems. D.H.Akehurst, J.Derrick, and A.G.Waters. In Elie Najm, Uwe Nestmann, and Perdita Stevens, editors, FMOODS 2003 - 6th IFIP WG 6.1 International Conference on Formal Methods for Open Object-Based Distributed Systems, volume 2884 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 276-292. Springer, November 2003.
Addressing Computational Viewpoint Design. D.H.Akehurst, J.Derrick, and A.G.Waters. In Seventh IEEE International Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference - EDOC 2003, Brisbane, Australia, September 2003. IEEE Computer Society.
Design and Verification of Distributed Multi-media Systems. D.H.Akehurst, B.Bordbar, J.Derrick, and A.G.Waters. Technical Report 1-03, University of Kent at Canterbury, January 2003.
Design Support for Distributed Systems: DSE4DS. D.H.Akehurst, B.Bordbar, J.Derrick, and A.G.Waters. In J.Finney, M.Haahr, and A.Montressor, editors, Procedings of the 7th Cabernet Radicals Workshop, October 2002.
A framework for UML consistency. John Derrick, David Akehurst, and Eerke Boiten. In L. Kuzniarz, G. Reggio, J. L. Sourrouille, and Z. Huzar, editors, <<UML>> 2002 Workshop on Consistency Problems in UML-based Software Development, pages 30-45, October 2002.
A UML approach to the design of open distributed systems. pdf. Behzad Bordbar, John Derrick, and Gill Waters. In Chris George and Huaikou Miao, editors, Formal Methods and Software Engineering, volume 2495 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 561-572. Springer, November 2002.
Using UML to specify QoS constraints in ODP. pdf . B. Bordbar, J. Derrick, and A. G. Waters. Computer Networks , October 2002.

Related Publications

Permabase: Predicting the performance of distributed systems at the design stage A. G. Waters, P. F. Linington, D. H. Akehurst, P. Utton, and G. Martin. IEE Proceedings - Software, vol. 148, pp. 113-121, August 2001.

Tools and Specifications

Support for tooling has been developed by contributions to the KMF project (see links below). A meta model for the concepts of the RM-ODP has been developed and the KMF tool kit used to generate a repository and browsing tool. Work is in progress to provide support for input using a graphical ODP style language.
Computational Viewpoint Language Definition Poseidon File

Publications on Tools

A relational approach to defining and implementing transformations between metamodels D. H. Akehurst, S. Kent, and O. Patrascoiu. Journal on Software and Systems Modeling, vol. 2, pp. 215-239, November 2003.
Tooling Metamodels with Patterns and OCL D. H. Akehurst and O. Patrascoiu. in J. S. Willans (eds) proceedings Metamodelling for MDA: First International Workshop, York, UK, pp. 203-215, November 2003.
OCL 2.0 ? Implementing the Standard for Multiple Metamodels D. H. Akehurst and O. Patrascoiu, in proceedings UML 2003 Workshop, OCL 2.0 - Industry standard or scientific playground?, San Francisco, USA, October 2003.
A Relational Approach to Defining Transformations in a Metamodel D. H. Akehurst and S. Kent in S. Cook (eds) proceedings The Unified Modeling Language 5th International Conference, LNCS, Springer, 2460, Dresden, Germany, pp. 305-320, 2002.