Towards%20Pattern%20Languages%20for%20Distributed%20Real-time%20

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Towards Pattern Languages for Distributed
Real-time Embedded Systems
Monday, July 23, 2018
Dr. Douglas C. Schmidt www.ece.uci.edu/schmidt/
schmidt_at_uci.edu Associate Professor Electrical
Computing Engineering Dept. The Henry Samueli
School of Engineering University of
California, Irvine
dschmidt_at_darpa.mil Deputy Director Program
Manager Information Technology Office
(ITO) DARPA Arlington, VA
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The Road Ahead

• Extrapolating this trend to 2010 yields
• 100 Gigahertz desktops
• 100 Gigabits/sec LANs
• 100 Megabits/sec wireless
• 10 Terabits/sec Internet backbone

In general, software has not improved as rapidly
or as effectively as hardware
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The Evolution of COTS

• Tedious, error-prone, costly over lifecycles

• Standards-based COTS middleware helps
• Manage end-to-end resources
• Leverage HW/SW technology advances
• Evolve to new environments requirements

The domain-specific services layer is where
system integrators can provide the most value
derive the most benefits
Key RD challenges include

• Layered QoS specification enforcement
• Separating policies mechanisms across layers
• Time/space optimizations for middleware apps

• Layered resource management optimization
• High confidence
• Stable robust adaptive systems

There are multiple COTS layers research/
business opportunities
Prior RD efforts have address some, but by no
means all, of these issues
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Addressing the COTS Crisis

• However, this trend presents many vexing RD
  challenges for mission-critical systems, e.g.,
• Inflexibility and lack of QoS
• Security global competition

Why we should care

• Despite IT commodization, progress in COTS
  hardware software is often not applicable for
  mission-critical DRE systems

• Recent advances in COTS software technology can
  help to fundamentally reshape DRE system RD

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RD Challenges Opportunities
Challenges
Opportunities
High-performance, real-time, fault-tolerant, and
secure systems
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Overview of Patterns and Pattern Languages
Patterns
Pattern Languages

• Define a vocabulary for talking about software
  development problems
• Provide a process for the orderly resolution of
  these problems
• Help to generate reuse software architectures

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Overview of Frameworks Components
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Why We are Succeeding Now

• Recent synergistic advances in fundamentals

• Why middleware-centric reuse works
• Hardware advances
• e.g., faster CPUs networks
• Software/system architecture advances
• e.g., inter-layer optimizations
  meta-programming mechanisms
• Economic necessity
• e.g., global competition for customers
  engineers

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Concluding Remarks Future Directions
RD Synergies

• Researchers developers of DRE applications face
  common challenges

• e.g., connection management, service
  initialization, error handling, flow congestion
  control, event demuxing, distribution,
  concurrency control, fault tolerance
  synchronization, scheduling, persistence

RD

• Patterns, frameworks, components help to
  resolve these challenges

RD

• These techniques are yielding more efficient,
  scalable, predictable, flexible DRE middleware
  applications

• Where we need to go next
• Discover systematically generate pattern
  languages for DRE systems
• Codify expert knowledge to help generate software
  architectures
• Capture recurring structures/dynamics of
  QoS-enabled DRE systems
• Formalize the semantics of QoS-related pattern
  languages
• Apply the pattern languages to generate DRE
  middleware frameworks components

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Consequences of COTS IT Commoditization

• More emphasis on integration rather than
  programming
• Increased technology convergence
  standardization
• Mass market economies of scale for technology
  personnel
• More disruptive technologies global competition
  
• Lower priced--but often lower quality--hardware
  software components
• The decline of internally funded RD
• Potential for complexity cap in next-generation
  complex systems

Not all trends bode well for long-term
competitiveness of traditional RD leaders
Ultimately, competitiveness will depend upon
understanding applying pattern languages for
complex DRE systems