Computer Science Colloquium

Prof. Dr. Alfonso Pierantonio
University of L`Aquila

Managing the Evolution of FOSS with Model-Driven Techniques

Wed 21.09.2011, 13:30, 60 minutes
Science Park, MT 128

Abstract

FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) systems present interesting challenges in system evolution. On one hand, most FOSS systems are based on fine-grained units of software deployment -called packages- which promote system evolution; on the other hand, FOSS systems are among the largest software systems known and require sophisticated static and dynamic conditions to be verified, in order to successfully deploy upgrades on users´ machines. The slightest error in one of these conditions can turn a routine upgrade into a system administrators nightmare. In this tutorial we introduce EVOSS - a model-based approach to support the upgrade of FOSS systems. The approach promotes the simulation of upgrades to predict failures before affecting the real system. Both fine-grained static aspects (e.g. configuration incoherences) and dynamic aspects (e.g. the execution of configuration scripts) are taken into account, improving over the state of the art of upgrade planners. The effectiveness of the approach is validated by instantiating the approach to widely-used FOSS distributions.

Bio

Alfonso Pierantonio is Associate Professor in computer science at the University of L`Aquila (Italy), he is currently director of the Master in Web Technology degree program. His current research interests include Model-Driven Engineering and in particular the theory and practice of model versioning/evolution with a specific emphasis on coupled evolution. In particular, he investigated the problem of co-evolution between metamodels and other artifacts in order to define the basis for their (semi) automatic adaptation. He has been and is currently part of program and organization committees of conferences and has been among the initiators and in the steering committee of the International Conference on Model Transformation (ICMT). He co-edited several special issues on Model Transformations appeared in different scientific journals and is associate editor of the Springer Journal of Software and Systems Modeling. More information on http://www.di.univaq.it/alfonso

Invited by Univ. Prof. Dr. Gabriele Kotsis

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The Computer Science Colloquium is organized by the Department of Coputer Science at JKU, the Österreichische Gesellschaft für Informatik (ÖGI) and the Österreichische Computergesellschaft (OCG).

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