Towards a Configurable Application Service Platform for Micro e-Services Providers

摘要

Application service platforms, also called application Platform-as a Service (aPaaS), comprise a set of software and hardware components (databases, servers, network resources, integrated development environment) that provide mechanisms for the development, deployment and management of end-user application services in multiple business domains. The aim of this study is to propose a design of a configurable aPaaS in a manner that is interactive and cost-effective, while optimal configurations can be obtained from the aPaaS based on the complex multi-dimensional variability techniques used in software product-line engineering. Our proposed approach integrates interactive preference articulation method for multi objective optimization during platform configuration of a product-line-as-a-service platform. The proposed PLaaSP is a viable framework that enables software product-line engineering technique to be consumed on demand while providing micro e-services providers to adopt software product-line competencies, thereby reducing the cost and steep learning curve of adopting software product-line practice.