Model driven middleware: A new paradigm for developing distributed real-time and embedded systems

摘要

Distributed real-time and embedded (DRE) systems have become critical in domains such as avionics (e.g., flight mission computers), telecommunications [e.g., wireless phone services), tele-medicine (e.g., robotic surgery), and defense applications (e.g., total ship computing environments). These types of system are increasingly interconnected via wireless and wireline networks to form systems of systems. A challenging requirement for these DRE systems involves supporting a diverse set of quality of service (QoS) properties, such as predictable latency/jitter, throughput guarantees, scalability, 24×7 availability, dependability, and security that must be satisfied simultaneously in real-time. Although increasing portions of DRE systems are based on QoS-enabled commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and software components, the complexity of managing long lifecydes (often ～15-30 years) remains a key challenge for DRE developers and system integrators. For example, substantial time and effort is spent retrofitting DRE applications when the underlying COTS technology infrastructure changes.rnThis paper provides two contributions that help improve the development, validation, and integration of DRE systems throughout their lifecydes. First, we illustrate the challenges in creating and deploying QoS-enabled component middleware-based DRE applications and describe our approach to resolving these challenges based on a new software paradigm called Model Driven Middleware (MDM), which combines model-based software development techniques with QoS-enabled component middleware to address key challenges faced by developers of DRE systems - particularly composition, integration, and assured QoS for end-to-end operations. Second, we describe the structure and functionality of CoSMIC (Component Synthesis using Model Integrated Computing), which is an MDM toolsuite that addresses key DRE application and middleware lifecycle challenges, including partitioning the components to use distributed resources effectively, validating software configurations, assuring multiple simultaneous QoS properties in realtime, and safeguarding against rapidly changing technology.