Software Adaptation Patterns for Service-Oriented Architectures

Abstract

This thesis describes the concept of software adaptation patterns and how they can be used in software adaptation of service-oriented architectures. The patterns are described in terms of a three-layer architecture for self-management. A software adaptation pattern defines how a set of components that make up an architecture pattern dynamically cooperate to change the software configuration to a new configuration. The software architecture in SOA is characterized by service coordination where services are orchestrated and/or sequenced by coordinators. As there are many different types of service coordination, this thesis focuses on SOA coordination patterns to capture the different kinds of coordination. Thus, a software adaptation pattern is developed for each coordination pattern. This thesis introduces adaptation connectors to encapsulate adaptation state machine models so that the adaptation patterns can be more reusable. A change management model for dynamically adapting service-oriented applications is also described with a case study.