NASA is researching advanced technologies for future exploration missions using intelligent swarm... more NASA is researching advanced technologies for future exploration missions using intelligent swarms of robotic vehicles. One of these missions is the Autonomous Nano Technology Swarm (ANTS) mission that will explore the asteroid belt using 1,000 cooperative autonomous spacecraft. From the engineering point of view, the complexity of this kind of systems is one of the main challenges that has to be overcame, since it makes the behavior of the swarm unpredictable. In NASA, many approaches are being explored towards this goal, mainly, a tailored software engineering approach for this kind of systems, called agent-oriented software engineering, and formal methods. In this paper, we report on the main advances we have done towards modelling, implementing, and testing NASA swarms-based concept missions.
Seventh International Conference on Composition-Based Software Systems (ICCBSS 2008), 2008
Business-Driven Development(BDD) is a research field that provides techniques and mechanisms for ... more Business-Driven Development(BDD) is a research field that provides techniques and mechanisms for designing software systems starting from the business processes of the companies. Companies are in continuous evolution to adapt to market changes, thus, current process engineers redesign the processes every time that is needed using ad hoc techniques. This situation motivates that these changes, called runtime variability, must be managed. Some authors have used Software Product Lines (SPL) ideas to manage it. Current approaches for documenting runtime variability in SPL and BDD, proposes different model representations. Unfortunately, we have determined that the expressiveness level in BDD is not adequate and SPL solutions needs for adaptation to BDD context for describing under which circumstances a business evolves. In this paper, we present a model for representing runtime variability in BDD systems. The main contributions of this proposal are: (i) it presents the enough expressiveness level for representing runtime variability; and (ii) process engineers can represent and understand under which events a business evolves and how is managed this evolution, which is not present in current approaches. We call this approach Product Evolution Model (PEM).
Nowadays most companies in whichever field have a software system that helps managing all the asp... more Nowadays most companies in whichever field have a software system that helps managing all the aspects of the company, from the strategic management to daily activities. Companies are in continuous evolution to adapt to market changes, and consequently, the Information Technology (IT) infrastructure that supports it must also evolve. Thus, software companies are currently supporting this evolution with ad hoc techniques. We think that, as it is being done for traditional software systems (non-oriented to business process) in the software product line (SPL) field, institutionalized techniques for performing a systematic reuse of business processes across different businesses can be introduced. In this paper, we propose to adapt SPL techniques, oriented to reuse software, to Business-Driven Development (BDD), oriented to reuse processes, across different businesses; we call this proposal Business Family Engineering (BFE). We present a first approach to build a SPL of BDD systems that evolves at runtime.
9. Dealing with Complexity in Agent-Oriented Software Engineering: The Importance of Interactions
... 9 Dealing with Complexity in Agent-Oriented Software Engineering: The Importance of Interacti... more ... 9 Dealing with Complexity in Agent-Oriented Software Engineering: The Importance of Interactions Joaquin Peña, Renato Levy, Mike Hinchey ... Therefore, if we determine first the ac-quaintance organization, and we define the constraints required for the structural organization, a ...
The variability level of average-size Business Information Systems (BIS) is highly enough for mak... more The variability level of average-size Business Information Systems (BIS) is highly enough for making the design of this kind of systems a complex task. There is an approach, called Process Family Engineering (PFE), that tries to ease the design of BIS using ideas from the Software Product Lines (SPL) field. Roughly speaking, they propose to, first, study the variability of the system without entering into details by means of building a variability model (called feature model), that is used later for building the business process. However, in PFE the process of deriving the business process from the feature model is performed manually. In addition, they use feature models with a different meaning that is commonly accepted in SPL. In this paper, we provide a rigorous description for the new meaning of feature models, and mapping relationship that clearly defines how to use the information in the FM for obtaining the basic structure of the business process (that needs to be completed manually). In addition, as a proof of concepts, we have implemented an MDD transformation that provides the expected results.
Nowadays most companies in whichever field have a software system that helps managing all the asp... more Nowadays most companies in whichever field have a software system that helps managing all the aspects of the company, from the strategic management to daily activities. Companies are in continuous evolution to adapt to market changes, and consequently, the Information Technology (IT) infrastructure that supports it must also evolve. Thus, software companies are currently supporting this evolution with ad hoc techniques. We think that, as it is being done for traditional software systems (non-oriented to business process) in the software product line (SPL) field, institutionalized techniques for performing a systematic reuse of business processes across different businesses can be introduced. In this paper, we explore the feasibility of adapting SPL techniques, oriented to reuse software, to Business-Driven Development (BDD), oriented to reuse processes, across different businesses; we call this approach Business Family Engineering (BFE). As a result of our study, we show some of the problems we have identified and some of the key aspects needed to enable this new field.
Nowadays large organizations are the result of the interrelation of many business units which ten... more Nowadays large organizations are the result of the interrelation of many business units which tend to be managed based on its business processes. The development of the Information Technology (IT) infrastructure that supports these organizations is a complex task, due to the existence of different versions of the same process, namely core process, tailored in terms of each unit that executes it. Thus, organizations lost the matching between each version and the original. It implies problems in the maintenance of process specifications, that drives to an inaccurate execution of the business strategies of the organization. The introduction of Software Product Lines (SPL) techniques into the development of Business Information Systems (BIS) is expected to become a new development paradigm, of what we call Business Families, maximizing reuse and dealing with variability on process definitions. Current SPL-based proposals do not solve the identified problems, because the proposed design of the reusable core specification is not performed in a systematic way that maintains its traceability with derived processes. The main contribution of this paper is to provide a methodological framework that taking into account the identified drawbacks makes feasible to obtain, systematically, the core architecture of a Business Information System Family, composed by the core process and the extra information needed to derive, systematically too, each version. We exemplify our approach with reference to a real-life E-Government case study.
On the one hand, the Software Product Lines (SPL) field is devoted to build a core architecture f... more On the one hand, the Software Product Lines (SPL) field is devoted to build a core architecture for a family of products from which concrete products can be derived rapidly by means of reuse. On the other hand, Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) is a software engineering paradigms dedicated to build software applications composed of organizations of agents. Bringing AOSE to the industrial world may prettily benefit from SPL advantages. Using SPL philosophy, a company will be able to define a core MAS from which concrete products will be derived for each customer. This can reduce time-to-market, costs, etcetera. In this paper, we expose the similarities between AOSE and SPL concluding the viability of future research in Multi-Agent Systems Product Lines (MAS-PL).
Third IEEE International Workshop on Engineering of Autonomic & Autonomous Systems, 2006
Autonomic Computing (AC), self-management based on high level guidance from humans, is increasing... more Autonomic Computing (AC), self-management based on high level guidance from humans, is increasingly gaining momentum as the way forward in designing reliable systems that hide complexity and conquer IT management costs. Effectively, AC may be viewed as Policy-Based Self-Management. We look at ways to achieve this, and in particular focus on Agent-Oriented Software Engineering. We propose utilizing an AOSE methodology for specifying autonomic and autonomous properties of the system independently, and later, by means of composition of these specifications, to construct a specification for the policy and its subsequent deployment.
Autonomic Computing (AC), self-management based on high level guidance from humans, is increasing... more Autonomic Computing (AC), self-management based on high level guidance from humans, is increasingly gaining momentum as the way forward in designing reliable systems that hide complexity and conquer IT management costs. Effectively, AC may be viewed as Policy-Based Self-Management. The Model Driven Architecture (MDA) approach focuses on building models that can be transformed into code in an automatic manner. In this paper, we look at ways to implement Policy-Based Self-Management by means of models that can be converted to code using transformations that follow the MDA philosophy. We propose a set of UML-based models to specify autonomic and autonomous features along with the necessary procedures, based on modification and composition of models, to deploy a policy as an executing system.
NASA is researching advanced technologies for future exploration missions using intelligent swarm... more NASA is researching advanced technologies for future exploration missions using intelligent swarms of robotic vehicles. One of these missions is the Autonomous Nano Technology Swarm (ANTS) mission that will explore the asteroid belt using 1,000 cooperative autonomous spacecraft. From the engineering point of view, the complexity of this kind of systems is one of the main challenges that has to be overcame, since it makes the behavior of the swarm unpredictable. In NASA, many approaches are being explored towards this goal, mainly, a tailored software engineering approach for this kind of systems, called agent-oriented software engineering, and formal methods. In this paper, we report on the main advances we have done towards modelling, implementing, and testing NASA swarms-based concept missions.
Seventh International Conference on Composition-Based Software Systems (ICCBSS 2008), 2008
Business-Driven Development(BDD) is a research field that provides techniques and mechanisms for ... more Business-Driven Development(BDD) is a research field that provides techniques and mechanisms for designing software systems starting from the business processes of the companies. Companies are in continuous evolution to adapt to market changes, thus, current process engineers redesign the processes every time that is needed using ad hoc techniques. This situation motivates that these changes, called runtime variability, must be managed. Some authors have used Software Product Lines (SPL) ideas to manage it. Current approaches for documenting runtime variability in SPL and BDD, proposes different model representations. Unfortunately, we have determined that the expressiveness level in BDD is not adequate and SPL solutions needs for adaptation to BDD context for describing under which circumstances a business evolves. In this paper, we present a model for representing runtime variability in BDD systems. The main contributions of this proposal are: (i) it presents the enough expressiveness level for representing runtime variability; and (ii) process engineers can represent and understand under which events a business evolves and how is managed this evolution, which is not present in current approaches. We call this approach Product Evolution Model (PEM).
Nowadays most companies in whichever field have a software system that helps managing all the asp... more Nowadays most companies in whichever field have a software system that helps managing all the aspects of the company, from the strategic management to daily activities. Companies are in continuous evolution to adapt to market changes, and consequently, the Information Technology (IT) infrastructure that supports it must also evolve. Thus, software companies are currently supporting this evolution with ad hoc techniques. We think that, as it is being done for traditional software systems (non-oriented to business process) in the software product line (SPL) field, institutionalized techniques for performing a systematic reuse of business processes across different businesses can be introduced. In this paper, we propose to adapt SPL techniques, oriented to reuse software, to Business-Driven Development (BDD), oriented to reuse processes, across different businesses; we call this proposal Business Family Engineering (BFE). We present a first approach to build a SPL of BDD systems that evolves at runtime.
9. Dealing with Complexity in Agent-Oriented Software Engineering: The Importance of Interactions
... 9 Dealing with Complexity in Agent-Oriented Software Engineering: The Importance of Interacti... more ... 9 Dealing with Complexity in Agent-Oriented Software Engineering: The Importance of Interactions Joaquin Peña, Renato Levy, Mike Hinchey ... Therefore, if we determine first the ac-quaintance organization, and we define the constraints required for the structural organization, a ...
The variability level of average-size Business Information Systems (BIS) is highly enough for mak... more The variability level of average-size Business Information Systems (BIS) is highly enough for making the design of this kind of systems a complex task. There is an approach, called Process Family Engineering (PFE), that tries to ease the design of BIS using ideas from the Software Product Lines (SPL) field. Roughly speaking, they propose to, first, study the variability of the system without entering into details by means of building a variability model (called feature model), that is used later for building the business process. However, in PFE the process of deriving the business process from the feature model is performed manually. In addition, they use feature models with a different meaning that is commonly accepted in SPL. In this paper, we provide a rigorous description for the new meaning of feature models, and mapping relationship that clearly defines how to use the information in the FM for obtaining the basic structure of the business process (that needs to be completed manually). In addition, as a proof of concepts, we have implemented an MDD transformation that provides the expected results.
Nowadays most companies in whichever field have a software system that helps managing all the asp... more Nowadays most companies in whichever field have a software system that helps managing all the aspects of the company, from the strategic management to daily activities. Companies are in continuous evolution to adapt to market changes, and consequently, the Information Technology (IT) infrastructure that supports it must also evolve. Thus, software companies are currently supporting this evolution with ad hoc techniques. We think that, as it is being done for traditional software systems (non-oriented to business process) in the software product line (SPL) field, institutionalized techniques for performing a systematic reuse of business processes across different businesses can be introduced. In this paper, we explore the feasibility of adapting SPL techniques, oriented to reuse software, to Business-Driven Development (BDD), oriented to reuse processes, across different businesses; we call this approach Business Family Engineering (BFE). As a result of our study, we show some of the problems we have identified and some of the key aspects needed to enable this new field.
Nowadays large organizations are the result of the interrelation of many business units which ten... more Nowadays large organizations are the result of the interrelation of many business units which tend to be managed based on its business processes. The development of the Information Technology (IT) infrastructure that supports these organizations is a complex task, due to the existence of different versions of the same process, namely core process, tailored in terms of each unit that executes it. Thus, organizations lost the matching between each version and the original. It implies problems in the maintenance of process specifications, that drives to an inaccurate execution of the business strategies of the organization. The introduction of Software Product Lines (SPL) techniques into the development of Business Information Systems (BIS) is expected to become a new development paradigm, of what we call Business Families, maximizing reuse and dealing with variability on process definitions. Current SPL-based proposals do not solve the identified problems, because the proposed design of the reusable core specification is not performed in a systematic way that maintains its traceability with derived processes. The main contribution of this paper is to provide a methodological framework that taking into account the identified drawbacks makes feasible to obtain, systematically, the core architecture of a Business Information System Family, composed by the core process and the extra information needed to derive, systematically too, each version. We exemplify our approach with reference to a real-life E-Government case study.
On the one hand, the Software Product Lines (SPL) field is devoted to build a core architecture f... more On the one hand, the Software Product Lines (SPL) field is devoted to build a core architecture for a family of products from which concrete products can be derived rapidly by means of reuse. On the other hand, Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) is a software engineering paradigms dedicated to build software applications composed of organizations of agents. Bringing AOSE to the industrial world may prettily benefit from SPL advantages. Using SPL philosophy, a company will be able to define a core MAS from which concrete products will be derived for each customer. This can reduce time-to-market, costs, etcetera. In this paper, we expose the similarities between AOSE and SPL concluding the viability of future research in Multi-Agent Systems Product Lines (MAS-PL).
Third IEEE International Workshop on Engineering of Autonomic & Autonomous Systems, 2006
Autonomic Computing (AC), self-management based on high level guidance from humans, is increasing... more Autonomic Computing (AC), self-management based on high level guidance from humans, is increasingly gaining momentum as the way forward in designing reliable systems that hide complexity and conquer IT management costs. Effectively, AC may be viewed as Policy-Based Self-Management. We look at ways to achieve this, and in particular focus on Agent-Oriented Software Engineering. We propose utilizing an AOSE methodology for specifying autonomic and autonomous properties of the system independently, and later, by means of composition of these specifications, to construct a specification for the policy and its subsequent deployment.
Autonomic Computing (AC), self-management based on high level guidance from humans, is increasing... more Autonomic Computing (AC), self-management based on high level guidance from humans, is increasingly gaining momentum as the way forward in designing reliable systems that hide complexity and conquer IT management costs. Effectively, AC may be viewed as Policy-Based Self-Management. The Model Driven Architecture (MDA) approach focuses on building models that can be transformed into code in an automatic manner. In this paper, we look at ways to implement Policy-Based Self-Management by means of models that can be converted to code using transformations that follow the MDA philosophy. We propose a set of UML-based models to specify autonomic and autonomous features along with the necessary procedures, based on modification and composition of models, to deploy a policy as an executing system.
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Papers by Joaquin Peña