1. Managing Dynamic Context for
Supporting Self-Adaptive and
Self-Managing Systems
Norha Villegas
First year PhD Student
Rigi Group - Computer Science Department
University of Victoria, Canada
y ,
nvillega@cs.uvic.ca
http://webhome.csc.uvic.ca/~nvillega/
Skype: norha.villegas

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Rigi Research Group
Outline
• Overview of my research group
O i f h
• My research motivation and current projects
• The smart Internet
• Context Management in the smart Internet
• A control-based reference model for engineering
self-adaptive systems
• Motivation for visiting ADAM team

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Rigi Research Group
My R
M Research G
h Group: Ri i
Rigi
• Leader: Prof. Dr. Hausi A. Müller
(http://webhome.cs.uvic.ca/~hausi/ )
• We investigate methods, models, architectures, techniques, and
feedback loops for supporting autonomic, self-managing, self-
adaptive, diagnosis, and SOA governance systems
▫ Ultra Large Scale environments
y
▫ Socio Technical-Ecosystems
• Sponsors and Partners
▫ Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
▫ Consortium for Software Engineering, Canada (CSER)
▫ IBM Corporation
▫ CA Inc.
▫ Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute (SEI)
▫ University of Victoria

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Rigi Research Group
Rigi’s Research Communities
• ICSE
▫ SEAMS: Workshop on software engineering for adaptive and self-managing
systems
▫ PESOS: International workshop on principles of engineering service oriented
systems
▫ DEAS Design and evolution of autonomic application software
DEAS: D i d l i f i li i f
▫ ACSE: Workshop on adoption-centric software engineering
• ICSM
▫ MESOA I t
MESOA: International workshop on a research agenda f maintenance and
ti l k h h d for i t d
evolution of service-oriented systems
▫ VISSOFT: International Workshop on Visualizing Software for Understanding
and Analysis
• CASCON: International Conference hosted by the IBM Centers for
Advanced Studies, Canada
▫ SITCON: the CAS/NSERC strategic workshop on smart internet technologies
• Dagstuhl Seminar on Software Engineering for Self-Adaptive Systems

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Rigi Research Group
My Research Motivation
• The application of feedback loops for supporting:
▫ the engineering of self-* software systems in
general
▫ the d
h dynamic adaptation and evolution of
i d i d l i f
context-aware service oriented software
systems in particular
y p
Source IBM: An architectural blueprint for Autonomic Computing

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Rigi Research Group
My Current Projects and Activities
• A joint IBM-NSERC project
▫ IBM PhD CAS student fellowship
▫ Project: Managing Dynamic Context to Optimize Smart
Interactions and Smart Services
https://www-927.ibm.com/ibm/cas/cassis/viewReport?REPORT=747
• Analysis and control of computing systems
y p g y
▫ Design of an experimental course for exploring the application of
control theory foundations to software engineering
https://connex.csc.uvic.ca/portal/site/eac7abb3-27a0-4a53-be0f-10525cabe46e
▫ C
Case study: A l i context-aware feedback l
d Applying f db k loops ffor
supporting monitoring in service oriented systems

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Rigi Research Group
Norha Villegas and Hausi Müller
Book chapter, Springer - LNCS (to appear)

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Rigi Research Group
Contributions
• Operational definition and classification of
context information
• A feature-based characterization of context
modeling and management approaches
g g pp
▫ Application of FODA (SEI) across the context life
cycle
•R
Requirements for context modeling and
i f d li d
management in the smart Internet

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Rigi Research Group
A Motivating Scenario
A woman arriving Once in her room Before leaving
a city the hotel
• While in the taxi she • An important • She uses her
receives a mobile dinner at that night mobile device for
check-in request • Receives a check-out and pay
• Dynamic personalized dress for hotel services
deployment of a
d l t f catalog from h
t l f her
context- aware favorite designer’s
application for boutique
hotel services • Fashion
• She has booked a preferences,
hotel in advance current location,
agenda
• Composes services
for ordering shoes
and accessories
Services are provided according to nearby facilities, the
woman’s preferences and her agenda for this visit

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Major Shortcomings of Current Internet
Interactions
C
Context-aware server
Integration f
I t ti from th user’s
the ’
Context-aware initiated connections
perspective
individualization (e.g. automatic
(e.g. service composition,
(e.g. custom dress catalog) deployment for service
user’s moc, a fancy dinner)
provisioning)
User control over web
Service level collaboration resources
(e.g. the woman and her (e.g. the woman selects
friends collaborating to services and decides about
buy accessories) remote or local
interactions)

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Rigi Research Group
The Smart Internet
Th S I
• Th evolution of I t
The l ti f Internett
• A new model centered on the user instead on the
server
• A new client-server interaction pattern
• Vision
▫ An instinctive user model
▫ Sessions for users and their matters of concerns
(mocs)
▫ Collective and collaborative web interactions

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Rigi Research Group
Smart Interactions and Smart Services
• Smart interactions
▫ The new model of interaction between the user
and the Web
▫ Online services and resources to address user or
group’s evolving concerns and situations
 Are discovered aggregated and delivered
discovered,
dynamically, automatically and interactively
• Smart Services
▫ Provide the infrastructure f supporting
d h f for
smart interactions
 Their requirements functions and relationships
requirements,

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Rigi Research Group
Context-Awareness Challenges in the Smart
Internet
Dynamic identification of context control objectives (context
management requirements)
Dynamic context models for representing context and control
objectives
Dynamic context management infrastructures able to gather, handle
and exploit context according to the model
Dynamic monitoring of context control objectives

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Rigi Research Group
Operational Definition of Context
Context is any information useful to characterize the state of
individual entities and the relationships among them. An
entity is any subject which can affect the behavior of the
system and/or its interaction with the user. This context
information must be modeled in such a way that it can be
p p
pre-processed after its acquisition from the environment,
f q f ,
classified according to the corresponding domain, handled to
be provisioned based on the system’s requirements, and
maintained to support its dynamic evolution.
Villegas and Müller, 2010.
Foundations: Dey’s definition (classical definition), Zimmerman’s definition (dynamic behaviour) and Hynes’
context life cycle.

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Classification of Context Information
Villegas and Müller, 2010.

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Rigi Research Group
Classification of Context Information

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Rigi Research Group
A Feature-Based Characterization of
Context Modeling and Management
• 25 papers with context modeling contributions
• 30 for context management
• Identification of relevant characteristics
▫ Framework for the identification of context modeling
and management requirements
▫ A useful tool for comparing existing and defining new
approaches
▫ A comprehensive characterization to guide researchers
in the investigation of this topic
Kang, K.C., Cohen, S.G., Hess, J.A., Novak, W.E., Peterson, A.S.: Feature-oriented domain analysis (FODA): Feasibility
study. CMU/SEI-90-TR-21 Technical Report (1990)

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Rigi Research Group
Context Modeling (1)
• For representing:
▫ Relevant aspects of entities that affect the
interactions between users and systems
▫ Situations that trigger dynamic changes
▫ Context control objectives: aspects to be
monitored
it d
First level features of context modeling

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Rigi Research Group
Context M d li (2)
C Modeling
Features of context entities and situation representation
Features of timeliness and quality modeling

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Rigi Research Group
Context Management
First level features of context management
Features of context acquisition

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Rigi Research Group
Context Modeling Requirements in the smart
Internet
• the hotel reservation
Context entities and situation • the new woman’s location
representation: that affect the interaction • a dinner at that night
among users and web resources in a moc • the woman’s profile in the
boutique’s system
Context control objectives representation: identifying a change in the
y g g
to support dynamic adaptation of web woman’s location: a new city
resources involved in a moc
Dynamic adaptation: according to changes the context representation for
the woman arriving the hotel
in the moc or in the state of its entities.
differs from the context for the
Ensuring representation pe
su g ep ese a o pertinence withe ce woman l i th h t l
leaving the hotel
current situations

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Rigi Research Group
Context Management Requirements in the smart
Internet
Identification of context control objectives from the model and define management
strategies accordingly
Support the adaptation of context model: schanges in situations, changes in context
control objectives
Gathering of relevant context regardless the availability of context sources
Context handling and situation reasoning according to the model
Context provisioning to multiple execution endpoints: open and technologically agnostic
mechanisms
Self-adaptation and self-management

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Rigi Research Group
Application of Feedback loops
• Application of control theory to the engineering of context-aware
self-adaptive systems
• Feedback loops provide the generic mechanism for self-adaptation
(collect, analyze, decide and act)
SISO feedback control block diagram with explicit functional elements and corresponding
interactions to control dynamic adaptation in a software system
Villegas, N.M., Müller, H.A., Tamura, G., Duchien, L., Casallas, R.: A Control Engineered Reference Model for Context-
Based Self-Adaptation. Submitted to SASO 2010.

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Rigi Research Group
Definition and
execution of the
adaptation plan
Context Control
Objectives
Obj i
(from system
control objectives)
Context
management
infrastructure
Gathering d
G th i and
symptoms inference Deciding about Sensing and
context manager Preprocessing
adaptation

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Rigi Research Group
System’s context to
support adaptation
monitoring
Provides
context control
objectives
Enables objectives Supports the system
manager to decide adaptation
about changes in (context provisioning)
control objectives

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Rigi Research Group
Many Open Ch ll
M O Challenges
• Identification of context control objectives, for instance from (at design and
run-time):
▫ Contracts for self-adaptation
▫ SLAs
▫ User’s matters of concerns
• Operational representation of context requirements and context entities
representation
▫ E.g.: timeliness for representing context changes in multiple Web sessions
• Tools for assisting users in the:
g
▫ Specification of context requirements
▫ Dynamic evolution of context models
• Managing uncertainty due to dynamic, transient and volatile context
• Supporting the dynamic adaptation of context models and management
pp g y p g
infrastructures
• Representation of context control objectives as control objectives in Control
Theory
• Categorizing control-centric architectural patterns for context-aware
systems

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Rigi Research Group
M i i f Vi i i ADAM T
Motivation for Visiting Team
CAPPUCINO
(a middleware built as an autonomic feedback loop for
supporting dynamic adaptation)
FRASCATI + FRASCAME
(Enabling lf d
(E bli self-adaptation i
i in Context Management
service oriented applications)
SCA Ubiquitous SPACES COSMOS
Ubiquitous Sensing and
Feedback (dissemination
(SOA +CBSE) bindings (Handling) gathering?
Loops mechanisms)

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Rigi Research Group
Merci!
Questions?
University of Victoria, aerial view