Presented at ISWC 2012 The paper is available at http://hal.inria.fr/hal-00721280/en

1. Achieving Interoperability through
Semantics-based Technologies:
The Instant Messaging Case
Amel Bennaceur and Valérie Issarny (Inria, France)
Romina Spalazzese (University of L’Aquila, Italy)
Shashank Tyagi (Banaras University, India)
ISWC 2012, 15th November 2012

2. Outline
 The Interoperability challenge in pervasive
environments
 Automated synthesis of mediators
• Ontology-based Modelling of Interaction Protocols
• Ontology-based Model Checking
 Implementation
 Lessons learned and future work
2

3. Interoperability in Pervasive
Environments
 Systems are becoming increasingly connected
• Future Internet, Cyber-Physical System, Internet of Things
• Integration becoming more difficult
 Interactions among components cannot be planned
beforehand
• Increasingly dynamic
• Unanticipated components
 System and its components figure out how to interact
dynamically
• Automatically ensuring interoperation at runtime
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4. Illustrating the Interoperability
Challenges
 A plethora of applications with
compatible functionalities
• e.g., exchanging instant messages
 Unable to interact
• e.g., MSN and XMPP clients
 Heterogeneous data and
behavioral models
• e.g., use of chat rooms
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5. Existing Approaches to
Interoperability
× Standard: chosen × Interoperability platforms: × Transparent interoperability:
shared language one talks all languages Auxiliary language
e.g., XMPP e.g., Pidgin, Adium e.g., J-EAI, CrossTalk
Transform on the fly using an mediators
How can we synthesise ‘correct’intermediary
automatically and deploy them : Babel network?
system (the mediator)
on the fish
e.g., WSMX
5

6. Outline
 The Interoperability challenge in pervasive
environments
 Automated synthesis of mediators
• Ontology-based Modelling of Interaction Protocols
• Ontology-based Model Checking
 Implementation
 Lessons learned and future work
6

7. Dynamic Synthesis of Mediators
 Sustaining composition in highly heterogeneous
and dynamic environments
• Semantics of networked systems needed to reason
about and achieve on-the-fly interoperability
• Ontology for the description of functional semantics
• Process algebra for the description of behavioural
semantics
• Combining ontology reasoning and behavioural analysis
• To support the automated generation of mediators
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8. Dynamic Synthesis of Mediators
b a
c d
e
MSNP IM Ontology XMPP Modelling
(OWL)
MSNP XMPP
model model Ontology-based
Model Checking
No Behavioral
Matching
Yes
Mediation
Mediator
Failure
8

9. Modelling of Interaction Protocols
 FSP (Finite State Processes)
• Semantics described using labelled transition systems
• Verification supported by the LTSA model checker
• Actions do FSP Syntaxany semantics
not have FSP Semantics
Action Prefix
Choice
Sequence
Parallel
Composition
9

10. Ontology-based Modelling of
Interaction Protocols
 An action specifies
• The operation required from or provided to the environment
• The associated input and output data
10

11. OFSP Specification of MSNP
11
11

12. OFSP Specification of XMPP
12
12

13. Ontology-based Reasoning about
Interaction Protocols
 Action Subsumption
• is subsumed by iff
•
•
•
 e.g.,
•
•
 is subsumed by
13

14. Ontology-based Reasoning about
Interaction Protocols
 Processes synchronise based on the semantics of actions
• If is subsumed by then generate to make them
synchronise
 Verify that the processes reach their final states using
model checking
14

15. Ontology-based Model Checking
15

16. Outline
 The Interoperability challenge in pervasive
environments
 Automated synthesis of mediators
• Ontology-based Modelling of Interaction Protocols
• Ontology-based Model Checking
 Implementation
 Lessons learned and future work
16

17. Implementation
Ontology-based Model Checking
(OLTSA)
Synthesis
DSL Spec Parser 1
Mediator Composer 2 DSL Spec
of messages Composer
Parser 2 of messages
1
SOCKS Proxy
XMPP Client BuddyManagement MSN Client
BindingManagement
17

18. Round Trip time with 100 car Mediator Performance
900
800
700
message (ms)
600
500
400
Native
300
Hand-crafted
200 Automated
100
0
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19. Outline
 The Interoperability challenge in pervasive
environments
 Automated synthesis of mediators
• Ontology-based Modelling of Interaction Protocols
• Ontology-based Model Checking
 Implementation
 Lessons learned and future work
19

20. Lessons Learned (1)
 It works!!!!
 Automated synthesis of mediators
promises to address interoperability in a
future-proof manner
 Ontologies have a key role to play in
supporting the automated synthesis of
mediators
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21. Lessons Learned (2)
 Dealing with a larger set of mappings
• One-to-many and many-to-many mappings
• Dealing with ambiguous mappings
 Extracting the system model automatically
• Using automata learning to learn the behaviour
• Using schema annotation to learn the annotations
 Need for standard benchmarks
• To evaluate the kind of mismatches that occur in real
systems
• To compare with similar approaches
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22. Thank you
22

23. Further Information
 Home page: www-rocq.inria.fr/~bennaceu
 ARLES: www.rocq.inria.fr/arles
 CONNECT: connect-forever.eu
 The Role of Ontologies in Emergent Middleware:
Supporting Interoperability in Complex Distributed
Systems, In Proc. Middleware 2011
 Middleware-layer Connector Synthesis: Beyond State of
the Art in Middleware Interoperability, In SFM 2011
 Towards an architecture for runtime interoperability, In
Proc. ISoLA 2010
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