Dynamic reconfiguration of cloud application architectures
2018 (English)In: Software, practice & experience, ISSN 0038-0644, E-ISSN 1097-024X, Vol. 48, no 2, p. 327-344, article id Special Issue: SIArticle in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Service-based cloud applications are software systems that continuously evolve to satisfy new user requirements and technological changes. This kind of applications also require elasticity, scalability, and high availability, which means that deployment of new functionalities or architectural adaptations to fulfill service level agreements (SLAs) should be performed while the application is in execution. Dynamic architectural reconfiguration is essential to minimize system disruptions while new or modified services are being integrated into existing cloud applications. Thus, cloud applications should be developed following principles that support dynamic reconfiguration of services, and also tools to automate these reconfigurations at runtime are needed. This paper presents an extension of a model-driven method for dynamic and incremental architecture reconfiguration of cloud services that allows developers to specify new services as software increments, and the tool to generate the implementation code for the services integration logic and the deployment and architectural reconfiguration scripts specific to the cloud environment in which the service will be deployed (e.g., Microsoft Azure). We also report the results of a quasi-experiment that empirically validate our method. It was conducted to evaluate their perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and perceived intention to use. The results show that the participants perceive the method to be useful, and they also expressed their intention to use the method in the future. Although further experiments must be carried out to corroborate these results, the method has proven to be a promising architectural reconfiguration process for cloud applications in the context of agile and incremental development processes.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
John Wiley & Sons, 2018. Vol. 48, no 2, p. 327-344, article id Special Issue: SI
Keywords [en]
Cloud architecture, Dynamic reconfiguration, Empirical validation, Model-driven development, Service-oriented architecture, Application programs, Computer architecture, Dynamic models, Information services, Memory architecture, Quality of service, Windows operating system, Cloud architectures, Dynamic re-configuration, Incremental development, Model driven development, Perceived ease of use, Reconfiguration process, Service level agreement (SLAs), Service oriented architecture (SOA)
National Category
Software Engineering
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:bth-13548DOI: 10.1002/spe.2457ISI: 000419472700004Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-84996565822OAI: oai:DiVA.org:bth-13548DiVA, id: diva2:1052566
2016-12-072016-12-072018-01-26Bibliographically approved