Objectives

Software in the near ubiquitous future (Softure) will need to cope with variability, as software systems get deployed on an increasingly large diversity of computing platforms and should further deliver applications ubiquitously.  Heterogeneity of the underlying communication and computing infrastructures, mobility and continuously evolving requirements demand new software paradigms that span the entire life-cycle, from development to deployment and execution. Softure must be developed in a way that facilitates both its deployment over heterogeneous networks of heterogeneous nodes, and its interaction with end users, their environment and/or other existing systems, depending on the application domain. Moreover, Softure should be reliable and meet the user’s performance requirements and needs. Last but not least, Softure should be dynamic so that the applications they implement can be provisioned ubiquitously, despite the high dynamics of the pervasive networking and computing environment. Looking at the software life cycle, one key issue in this domain appears to be the disappearance of a clear distinction between static and dynamic aspects. Indeed, the adaptability requirement imposed by ubiquity makes software become “evolving” in nature, therefore introducing a strong interaction between the development environment and the middleware one.  Goal of the ASA team is to research design and programming techniques and innovative middleware models that can be profitably integrated to support this new generation of software systems.

Status

After 3 years of support from 2007 to 2009, the team is no longer part of the  INRIA associated team program. However, collaboration with the University of L'Aquila on ASA topic keeps ongoing, in particular as part of our research on the dynamic synthesis of connectors.