A domain-driven method for creating self-adaptive application architecture

Abstract

Following the increasing complexity of modern software systems, software engineers have introduced self-adaptation techniques from the field of control theory into software development. However, it is still difficult to construct self-adaptive software systems. By understanding the importance of software architecture, this dissertation concerns the issues of how to design a domain-specific self-adaptive software application architecture in a principled way. Specifically, there is still lacking of method for helping software engineers generate software architecture which is consistent with the domain knowledge. To achieve the research goal, this dissertation has: 1) investigated the existing definitions about software architecture; 2) proposed a framework of understanding self-adaptive software application architecture via appropriate architectural patterns; 3) proposed a novel high-order language, and the tools, to specify domain-specific uncertainty; 4) proposed an improved version of Grasp, and the tools, so that users can describe the dynamism of a self-adaptive application; 5) proposed a novel architectural pattern by selecting architectural patterns in a principled way; 6) evaluate this work by applying these methods to a business project.