As new business models and market opportunities are rapidly emerging from the 'opening u... more As new business models and market opportunities are rapidly emerging from the 'opening up'of telecommunications networks, we required a better understanding of the effectiveness of using open standards to provide access to functions in NGNs. In this paper we reason ...
Open systems are being presented as the way forward for the construction of complex computer base... more Open systems are being presented as the way forward for the construction of complex computer based systems of all types. They have had some success but as with all such attempts to solve problems in computing, it is being touted as a panacea. Before the success is lost in disgruntled disappointment, this reflection attempts to establish awareness of pitfalls which
New Trends in Software Methodologies, Tools and Techniques, 2012
ABSTRACT Software mining is related to both data mining and reverse engineering. It is focused on... more ABSTRACT Software mining is related to both data mining and reverse engineering. It is focused on mining software artefacts such as code bases, program states and structural entities for useful information related to the characteristics of a system. This paper provides an introduction to the field. It first reviews a representative selection of the ways software mining has been applied. It then divides software mining into three subcategories and explains each one in detail. Finally this paper summarises some of the advantages and limitations of software mining, both now and in the future. These advantages and limitations have been informed by the author's own research applying software mining to the field of User Interface generation.
Heuristics have long been a popular and effective mechanism for capturing the knowledge of expert... more Heuristics have long been a popular and effective mechanism for capturing the knowledge of experts. In recent times, however, the more common use of heuristics has been as a means for communicating ideas at an abstract level, with little consideration to their potential as a structured approach to design improvement. With this paper we present the issues surrounding, and a
Being able to predict the overall performance of a computer based system, prior to building it, i... more Being able to predict the overall performance of a computer based system, prior to building it, is one of the greatest challenges facing system engineers today. The emerging discipline of system architecture, by defining a high level abstraction of the overall structure of the system, hopes to provide the foundation for this reasoning. The authors demonstrate an architecture-based performance analysis
Architectural change heuristics are a very powerful mechanism for implementing architectural opti... more Architectural change heuristics are a very powerful mechanism for implementing architectural optimisation. They allow for both the capture of the systematic changes required to maintain system integrity and the often poorly understood rationale of expert knowledge. However, even though heuristics are one of the oldest and most widely used problem-solving mechanisms, they are also perhaps one of the most mis-used
The continuing expansion of telecommunication service domains, from Quality of Service guaranteed... more The continuing expansion of telecommunication service domains, from Quality of Service guaranteed connectivity to ubiquitous cloud environments, has introduced an ever increasing level of complexity in the field of service management. This complexity arises not only from the sheer variability in service requirements but also through the required but ill-defined interaction of multiple organisations and providers. As a result of this complexity and variability, the provisioning and performance of current services is adversely affected, often with little or no accountability to the users of the service.This exposes a need for total coverage in the management of such complex services, a system which provides for service responsibility. Service responsibility is defined as the provisioning of service resilience and the judgement of service risk across all the service components. To be effective in responsible management for current complex services, any framework must be able to interact with multiple providers and management systems. The CARMA framework upon which we are working, aims to fulfil these requirements through a multi-agent system, that is based in a global market, and can negotiate and be responsible for multiple complex services.To this end the research aims to present the architecture, agent functionality and interactions of the CARMA system, as well as the structure of the marketplace, contract specification and risk management.As the scope and concepts of the proposed system are relatively unexplored, a model and simulation was developed to verify the concepts, explore the issues, assess the assumptions and validate the system. The results of the simulation determined that the introduction of CARMA has the potential to reduce the risk in contracting new services, increase the reliability of contracted services, and increase the utility of providers participating in the market.
Design space exploration, the generation of alternate designs to identify working designs with va... more Design space exploration, the generation of alternate designs to identify working designs with varying system properties, has the potential to provide a basis for the optimisation of computer-based system architectures. To utilise design space exploration for this purpose requires that an effective mechanism exist for the storage and application of potential design changes. Heuristics have shown some promise in this
Open systems, through the use of public, consensus based specifications or standards, are focusse... more Open systems, through the use of public, consensus based specifications or standards, are focussed on achieving the interoperability between, and the portability of components. In accommodating standards, open systems promise the advantages of plug-n-play technology, rapid prototyping and component re-use, while at the same time preventing system integration misfits, short system lifespan and difficulty in maintenance. In the development of
The need to address system architecture within the computer systems development process is well a... more The need to address system architecture within the computer systems development process is well accepted. Despite this, the process of architecting is still not well understood. In this paper we discuss the need for an architecting process which goes beyond specific architecting methods in order to address issues such as architecture evaluation and tailoring of architectures to specific system requirements. Based on these needs we propose an architecting process which selects from existing methods, bases and performance indices to produce a verifiable architecture. This process provides a framework within which we can develop an architecture which has the maximum (measurable) likelihood of satisfying both functional and nonfunctional system requirements upon implementation.
As new business models and market opportunities are rapidly emerging from the 'opening u... more As new business models and market opportunities are rapidly emerging from the 'opening up'of telecommunications networks, we required a better understanding of the effectiveness of using open standards to provide access to functions in NGNs. In this paper we reason ...
Open systems are being presented as the way forward for the construction of complex computer base... more Open systems are being presented as the way forward for the construction of complex computer based systems of all types. They have had some success but as with all such attempts to solve problems in computing, it is being touted as a panacea. Before the success is lost in disgruntled disappointment, this reflection attempts to establish awareness of pitfalls which
New Trends in Software Methodologies, Tools and Techniques, 2012
ABSTRACT Software mining is related to both data mining and reverse engineering. It is focused on... more ABSTRACT Software mining is related to both data mining and reverse engineering. It is focused on mining software artefacts such as code bases, program states and structural entities for useful information related to the characteristics of a system. This paper provides an introduction to the field. It first reviews a representative selection of the ways software mining has been applied. It then divides software mining into three subcategories and explains each one in detail. Finally this paper summarises some of the advantages and limitations of software mining, both now and in the future. These advantages and limitations have been informed by the author's own research applying software mining to the field of User Interface generation.
Heuristics have long been a popular and effective mechanism for capturing the knowledge of expert... more Heuristics have long been a popular and effective mechanism for capturing the knowledge of experts. In recent times, however, the more common use of heuristics has been as a means for communicating ideas at an abstract level, with little consideration to their potential as a structured approach to design improvement. With this paper we present the issues surrounding, and a
Being able to predict the overall performance of a computer based system, prior to building it, i... more Being able to predict the overall performance of a computer based system, prior to building it, is one of the greatest challenges facing system engineers today. The emerging discipline of system architecture, by defining a high level abstraction of the overall structure of the system, hopes to provide the foundation for this reasoning. The authors demonstrate an architecture-based performance analysis
Architectural change heuristics are a very powerful mechanism for implementing architectural opti... more Architectural change heuristics are a very powerful mechanism for implementing architectural optimisation. They allow for both the capture of the systematic changes required to maintain system integrity and the often poorly understood rationale of expert knowledge. However, even though heuristics are one of the oldest and most widely used problem-solving mechanisms, they are also perhaps one of the most mis-used
The continuing expansion of telecommunication service domains, from Quality of Service guaranteed... more The continuing expansion of telecommunication service domains, from Quality of Service guaranteed connectivity to ubiquitous cloud environments, has introduced an ever increasing level of complexity in the field of service management. This complexity arises not only from the sheer variability in service requirements but also through the required but ill-defined interaction of multiple organisations and providers. As a result of this complexity and variability, the provisioning and performance of current services is adversely affected, often with little or no accountability to the users of the service.This exposes a need for total coverage in the management of such complex services, a system which provides for service responsibility. Service responsibility is defined as the provisioning of service resilience and the judgement of service risk across all the service components. To be effective in responsible management for current complex services, any framework must be able to interact with multiple providers and management systems. The CARMA framework upon which we are working, aims to fulfil these requirements through a multi-agent system, that is based in a global market, and can negotiate and be responsible for multiple complex services.To this end the research aims to present the architecture, agent functionality and interactions of the CARMA system, as well as the structure of the marketplace, contract specification and risk management.As the scope and concepts of the proposed system are relatively unexplored, a model and simulation was developed to verify the concepts, explore the issues, assess the assumptions and validate the system. The results of the simulation determined that the introduction of CARMA has the potential to reduce the risk in contracting new services, increase the reliability of contracted services, and increase the utility of providers participating in the market.
Design space exploration, the generation of alternate designs to identify working designs with va... more Design space exploration, the generation of alternate designs to identify working designs with varying system properties, has the potential to provide a basis for the optimisation of computer-based system architectures. To utilise design space exploration for this purpose requires that an effective mechanism exist for the storage and application of potential design changes. Heuristics have shown some promise in this
Open systems, through the use of public, consensus based specifications or standards, are focusse... more Open systems, through the use of public, consensus based specifications or standards, are focussed on achieving the interoperability between, and the portability of components. In accommodating standards, open systems promise the advantages of plug-n-play technology, rapid prototyping and component re-use, while at the same time preventing system integration misfits, short system lifespan and difficulty in maintenance. In the development of
The need to address system architecture within the computer systems development process is well a... more The need to address system architecture within the computer systems development process is well accepted. Despite this, the process of architecting is still not well understood. In this paper we discuss the need for an architecting process which goes beyond specific architecting methods in order to address issues such as architecture evaluation and tailoring of architectures to specific system requirements. Based on these needs we propose an architecting process which selects from existing methods, bases and performance indices to produce a verifiable architecture. This process provides a framework within which we can develop an architecture which has the maximum (measurable) likelihood of satisfying both functional and nonfunctional system requirements upon implementation.
Uploads