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Vol: 47(61) No: 1 / March 2002      

Requirements Driven, Architecture Specific Compositional Model
Ioana Sora
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, "Politehnica" University of Timisoara, Bd. V.Parvan 2, 1900 Timisoara, Romania
Yolande Berbers
Department of Computer Science, Katholieke University of Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200A, 3001 Heverlee, Belgium
Pierre Verbaeten
Department of Computer Science, Katholieke University of Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200A, 3001 Heverlee, Belgium
Vladimir Cretu
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, "Politehnica" University of Timisoara, Bd. V.Parvan 2, 1900 Timisoara, Romania


Keywords: Components, Software Composition, Software Architecture, Self-Adaptive Systems.

Abstract
In this paper we propose a compositional model targeted at multi-flow architectures. This establishes a framework for reasoning about the ways to ensure a component composition with desired properties, based on properties of individual components. It addresses issues of component composition both as a design methodology for building systems as well as a means for realising self-customisable systems. We propose a compositional model which comprises a component description scheme and formalism, and a well defined requirement driven composition strategy. Our insight is that architecture-style dependent only composition strategies, independent from the application domains, are needed. Our current work focuses on solutions for the composition of systems characterised by multi-flows architectures. To formulate this compositional model, we merge individual experiences with approaching composition problems in particular classes of applications that present these architectural similarities (network protocol stacks and virtual instrumentation for DSP and control are the 2 domains currently considered). We believe that the proposed solutions can be applied also on other application domain where software system share this architectural style.

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