Bridges and barriers to hardware-dependent software ecosystem participation – A case study

BackgroundSoftware ecosystems emerged as means for several actors to jointly provide more value to the market than any of them can do on its own. Recently, software ecosystems are more often used to support the development of hardware-dependent solutions.ObjectivesThis work aims at studying barriers and bridges to participation in an ecosystem with substantial hardware dependencies.MethodWe conducted an interview-based case study of an ecosystem around Axis’ network video surveillance systems, interviewing 10 internal experts and 8 external representatives of 6 companies, complemented by document studies at Axis.ResultsMajor bridges to the ecosystem include end customer demands, open and transparent communication and relationship, as well as internal and external standardizations. Barriers include the two-tier business model, entry barriers and execution performance issues. Approximately half of the identified bridges and barriers could be considered hardware-dependent ecosystems specific.ConclusionOur results suggest that ecosystem leaders should share their sales channels with the ecosystem participants and focus on good communication and relationships as the dominant factors for the ecosystem participation. Moreover, we report that internal and external standardization can play a dual role, not only ease the development but also enable additional sales channels and new opportunities for the ecosystem participants. At the same time, the business model selected by the ecosystem leaders and performance, are identified as the main barriers to ecosystem participation. We believe that the business model barrier may be much more important for similar hardware-dependent software ecosystems.     

The rise and fall of the competitive local exchange carriers in the U.S.: An institutional perspective

The debacle of the telecommunications industry at the turn of the millennium resulted in significant consequences for investors, workers, financial institutions, telecom companies, and the economy in general worldwide. In the midst of the telecom bubble, the CLECs (competitive local exchange carriers) adopted similar or identical business plans and saturated the market, which resulted in destructive competition. In this study, we investigate the isomorphic business models of the CLECs from the perspectives of the new institutional theory. We argue that the combined coercive, mimetic, and normative institutional forces exerted on the companies by the actors who controlled the funding, managed the business, and provided the information fashioned the isomorphic CLEC business models, which in turn contributed to the demise of these companies and thus the burst of the telecom bubble. Evidence of the institutional influences on CLECs and the actors exerted the influences are presented and their consequences are discussed. Qing Hu is Professor of Information Systems in the Department of Information Technology & Operations Management at Florida Atlantic University. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Information Systems from the University of Miami. His research interests include economics of information technology (IT), IT strategy and management, and information security. His work has been published in leading academic journals including Information Systems Research, Journal of Management Information Systems, Communications of the ACM, Communications of the AIS, California Management Review, and IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. He also serves as associate and guest-editors for a number of IS journals and major conferences. C. Derrick Huang is Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Technology & Operations Management in the College of Business at Florida Atlantic University. Previously, as a practitioner, he held executive-level positions in the area of marketing and strategic planning in a number of high-tech companies. Dr. Huang’s research interest lies in the business value and strategic impact of information technology in organizations, and his current focus is on the economics and management of information security investments. He holds Ph.D. from Harvard University.     

A Basis for Analyzing Software Architecture Analysis Methods

A software architecture is a key asset for any organization that builds complex software-intensive systems. Because of an architecture's central role as a project blueprint, organizations should analyze the architecture before committing resources to it. An analysis helps to ensure that sound architectural decisions are made. Over the past decade a large number of architecture analysis methods have been created, and at least two surveys of these methods have been published. This paper examines the criteria for analyzing architecture analysis methods, and suggests a new set of criteria that focus on the essence of what it means to be an architecture analysis method. These criteria could be used to compare methods, to help understand the suitability of a method, or to improve a method. We then examine two methods—the Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method and Architecture-level Modifiability Analysis—in light of these criteria, and provide some insight into how these methods can be improved. Rick Kazman is a Senior Member of the Technical Staff at the Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie Mellon University and Professor at the University of Hawaii. His primary research interests are software architecture, design and analysis tools, software visualization, and software engineering economics. He also has interests in human-computer interaction and information retrieval. Kazman has created several highly influential methods and tools for architecture analysis, including the SAAM and the ATAM. He is the author of over 80 papers, and co-author of several books, including “Software Architecture in Practice”, and “Evaluating Software Architectures: Methods and Case Studies”. Len Bass is a Senior Member of the Technical Staff at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI). He has written two award winning books in software architecture as well as several other books and numerous papers in a wide variety of areas of computer science and software engineering. He is currently working on techniques for the methodical design of software architectures and to understand how to support usability through software architecture. He has been involved in the development of numerous different production or research software systems ranging from operating systems to database management systems to automotive systems. Mark Klein is Senior Member of the Technical Staff of the Software Engineering Institute. He has over 20 years of experience in research on various facets of software engineering, dependable real-time systems and numerical methods. Klein's most recent work focuses on the analysis of software architectures, architecture tradeoff analysis, attribute-driven architectural design and scheduling theory. Klein's work in real-time systems involved the development of rate monotonic analysis (RMA), the extension of the theoretical basis for RMA, and its application to realistic systems. Klein's earliest work involved research in high-order finite element methods for solving fluid flow equations arising in oil reservoir simulation. He is the co-author two books: “A Practitioner's Handbook for Real-Time Analysis: Guide to Rate Monotonic Analysis for Real-Time Systems” and “Evaluating Software Architecture: Methods and Case Studies”. Anthony J. Lattanze is an Associate Teaching Professor at the Institute for Software Research International (ISRI) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and a senior member of the technical staff at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI). Anthony teaches courses in CMUs Masters of Software Engineering Program in Software Architecture, Real-Time/Embedded Systems, and Software Development Studio. His primary research interest is in the area software architectural design for embedded, software intensive systems. Anthony consults and teaches throughout industry in the areas of software architecture design and architecture evaluation. Prior to Carnegie Mellon, Mr. Lattanze was the Chief of Software Engineering for the Technology Development Group at the United States Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base, CA. During his tenure at the Flight Test Center, he was involved with a number of software and systems engineering projects as a software and systems architect, project manager, and developer. During this time as he was involved with the development, test, and evaluation of avionics systems for the B-2 Stealth Bomber, F-117 Stealth Fighter, and F-22 Advanced Tactical Fighter among other systems. Linda Northrop is the director of the Product Line Systems Program at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) where she leads the SEI work in software architecture, software product lines and predictable component engineering. Under her leadership the SEI has developed software architecture and product line methods that are used worldwide, a series of five highly-acclaimed books, and Software Architecture and Software Product Line Curricula. She is co-author of the book, “Software Product Lines: Practices and Patterns,” and a primary author of the SEI Framework for Software Product Line Practice.     

Management of enterprise-wide systems integration programs

Automation and Information Systems play both tactical and strategic roles in the success of a business enterprise. They also pose an extremely challenging set of management issues concerned with the selection and management of technologies, management of the workforce to achieve successful implementation and operational use, and the integration of automation and information systems with business operations to capture the full benefits. Systems Integration programs involve high levels of technical and management risk commensurate with the significant business benefits that may be achieved. New and emerging automation and information technologies for Computer Integrated Manufacturing/Distribution, image processing, real-time transaction processing, and customer service cut across all organizational and functional units of an enterprise and require full system integration to capture their potential benefits. A wave of re-engineering programs are underway within commercial enterprises and the government to modify their business processes to take full competitive advantage of these technologies. There are numerous examples of both well managed and hopelessly mangled systems integration programs in both the public and private sectors that lead to the need for better management approaches. The management of software development has been a particularly troublesome area. This article presents a general model of the management structure to implement a systems integration program, using an enterprise-wide Information Systems Architecture (ISA) as a roadmap, and supported by a defined set of measures and metrics. Standards, although no panacea for systems integratio, play an important role in the architectural framework. The Information System Architecture approach described in this article is comprehensive in covering application software and data architecture as well as the computing and communications hardware infrastructure and other automation technologies that support the overall business process. The objective of the accompanying management model is to define a management structure, its essential functions, and methods that support a traditional systems development approach, as well as new approaches using prototyping and evolutionary development. Any of these management approaches require an ISA that is comprehensive in supporting business objectives, resilient in accommodating changing business conditions and technologies, and useful in producing a practical information architecture that can be applied to business operations. Examples of the ISA approach that support systems management are discussed for representative types of enterprise in the manufacturing sector and the service sector:

1. The Manufacturing/Distribution Enterprise example uses automated manufacturing and materials handling systems supported by MRPII software to integrate engineering, distribution, and financial systems; and
2. The Financial Services Enterprise example applies automated transaction processing using image processing and document management systems to achieve improved products and a more productive workflow with enhanced response to customers and/or clients.

     

Power Efficient Sub-Array in Reconfigurable VLSI Meshes

Given an m×n mesh-connected VLSI array with some faulty elements, the reconfiguration problem is to find a maximum-sized fault-free sub-array under the row and column rerouting scheme. This problem has already been shown to be NP-complete. In this paper, new techniques are proposed, based on heuristic strategy, to minimize the number of switches required for the power efficient sub-array. Our algorithm shows that notable improvements in the reduction of the number of long interconnects could be realized in linear time and without sacrificing on the size of the sub-array. Simulations based on several random and clustered fault scenarios clearly reveal the superiority of the proposed techniques.     

Application of knowledge-based approaches in software architecture: A systematic mapping study

ContextKnowledge management technologies have been employed across software engineering activities for more than two decades. Knowledge-based approaches can be used to facilitate software architecting activities (e.g., architectural evaluation). However, there is no comprehensive understanding on how various knowledge-based approaches (e.g., knowledge reuse) are employed in software architecture.ObjectiveThis work aims to collect studies on the application of knowledge-based approaches in software architecture and make a classification and thematic analysis on these studies, in order to identify the gaps in the existing application of knowledge-based approaches to various architecting activities, and promising research directions.MethodA systematic mapping study is conducted for identifying and analyzing the application of knowledge-based approaches in software architecture, covering the papers from major databases, journals, conferences, and workshops, published between January 2000 and March 2011.ResultsFifty-five studies were selected and classified according to the architecting activities they contribute to and the knowledge-based approaches employed. Knowledge capture and representation (e.g., using an ontology to describe architectural elements and their relationships) is the most popular approach employed in architecting activities. Knowledge recovery (e.g., documenting past architectural design decisions) is an ignored approach that is seldom used in software architecture. Knowledge-based approaches are mostly used in architectural evaluation, while receive the least attention in architecture impact analysis and architectural implementation.ConclusionsThe study results show an increased interest in the application of knowledge-based approaches in software architecture in recent years. A number of knowledge-based approaches, including knowledge capture and representation, reuse, sharing, recovery, and reasoning, have been employed in a spectrum of architecting activities. Knowledge-based approaches have been applied to a wide range of application domains, among which “Embedded software” has received the most attention.     

Preemptive Security Through Information Analytics

ABSTRACT

Business security and threat actors continue to play a dangerous cat-and-mouse game with businesses intellectual property, customer data, and business reputations at stake. Businesses need to delve into a new way of doing business security to break out of this game. Businesses are sitting on repositories full of security-relevant data that is not being capitalized upon with the current information security and physical security organizations within businesses. This article poses the introduction of a data scientist role and a new supporting central data correlation technology platform based on big data predictive analytics into business security functions. The goal is to intelligently and autonomously identify, correlate and pinpoint normally innocuous or unnoticed security event attributes to allow security personnel to preemptively remediate physical and information risks before exploitation or loss of intellectual property occurs.     

Dynamic State Charts: composition and coordination of complex robot behavior and reuse of action plots

Support for separation of roles is decisive towards a successful business ecosystem where various stakeholders with dedicated expertises network and collaborate. However, it depends on means for composition(system of systems, reuse of black boxes). This paper proposes Dynamic State Charts as an extension of state charts for composition and coordination of complex robot behavior which is one of the challenges in service robotics. Their states allow to refine their content by choosing from a set of alternative matching state instances for robust task execution and to manage the complexity of real-world tasks. Dynamic State Charts allow reuse and can be bundled with software components and are provided in a repository (idea of an “robot app store”) as a step towards composition and separation of roles as necessary for a business ecosystem in service robotics. The approach is demonstrated in a practical application with a service robot.     

Problems and their mitigation in system and software architecting

ContextToday, software and embedded systems act as enablers for developing new functionality in traditional industries such as the automotive, process automation, and manufacturing automation domains. This differs from 25–30 years ago when these systems where based on electronics and electro-mechanical solutions. The architecture of the embedded system and of the software is important to ensure the qualities of these applications. However, the effort of designing and evolving the architecture is in practice often neglected during system development, whilst development efforts are centered on implementing new functionality.ObjectiveWe present problems and success factors that are central to the architectural development of software intensive systems in the domain of automotive and automation products as judged by practitioners.MethodThe method consisted of three steps. First, we used semi-structured interviews to collect data in an exploratory manner. As a second step, a survey based on problems extracted from the interview data was used to investigate the occurrence of these problems at a wider range of organizations. In order to identify and suggest how to mitigate the problems that were considered important, we finally performed root cause analysis workshops, and from these a number of success factors were elicited.ResultsA total of 21 problems have been identified based on the interview data, and these are related to the technical, organizational, project, and agreement processes. Based on the survey results, the following four problems were selected for a root cause analysis: (1) there is a lack of process for architecture development, (2) there is a lack of method or model to evaluate the business value when choosing the architecture, (3) there is a lack of clear long-term architectural strategy, and (4) processes and methods are less valued than knowledge and competence of individuals.ConclusionIn conclusion, the following identified success factors are crucial components to be successful in developing software intensive systems: (1) define an architectural strategy, (2) implement a process for architectural work, (3) ensure authority for architects, (4) clarify the business impact of the architecture, and (5) optimize on the project portfolio level instead of optimizing each project.     

具有智能特征的防火墙--专家系统及其在网络安全管理中的应用

本文提出将专家系统应用于网络安全管理的观念,对比了传统防火墙与新型智能型防火墙的特点,提出了一种基于专家系统的新型防火墙结构并给出了其实现．同时本文讨论了此结构的特点,并给出了一个实现的例子．最后本文总结了将专家系统应用于网络安全管理所带来的好处,并对下一步的工作作了预计和设想．     

Making Augmented Reality Practical on Mobile Phones, Part 1

Since 2003, the authors have been developing three generations of a software framework for handheld augmented reality (AR), targeting mobile phones. This article is the first part of a discussion on the experiences and design decisions that resulted in the current software framework, Studierstube ES (Embedded System). The authors describe the restrictions of the mobile phone platform and a software architecture that allows fast development of mobile phone AR applications.     

RETRACTED ARTICLE: A multi-agent architectural solution for coherent distributed reconfigurations of function blocks

The paper deals with distributed Multi-Agent Reconfigurable Embedded Control Systems following the International Industrial Standard IEC61499 in which a Function Block (abbreviated by FB) is an event-triggered software component owning data and a control application is a network of distributed blocks that should satisfy functional and temporal properties according to user requirements. We define an architecture of reconfigurable multi-agent systems in which a Reconfiguration Agent is affected to each device of the execution environment to apply local reconfigurations, and a Coordination Agent is proposed for coordinations between devices in order to guarantee safe and adequate distributed reconfigurations. A Communication Protocol is proposed to handle coordinations between agents by using well-defined Coordination Matrices. We specify both reconfiguration agents to be modelled by nested state machines, and the Coordination Agent according to the formalism Net Condition-Event Systems (Abbreviated by NCES) which is an extension of Petri nets. To validate the whole architecture, we check by applying the model checker SESA in each device functional and temporal properties to be described according to the temporal logic “Computation Tree Logic”. We have also to check all possible coordinations between devices by verifying that whenever a reconfiguration is applied in a device, the Coordination Agent and other concerned devices react as described in user requirements. We present a tool applying simulations of this distributed architecture in order to check interactions and reactivities of agents. The paper’s contributions are applied to two Benchmark Production Systems available in our research laboratory.     

Embedded systems and the kitchen sink

Reviewed in this issue Embedded Systems Handbook, edited by Richard Zurawski (CRC Press, 2005, ISBN 0-84-932824-1, 1160 pp., $139.95). Zurawski has done a good job of covering the broad topic of embedded systems. The book offers something to almost everyone in the field: A reader new to embedded systems but grounded in software and computer architecture can gain a broad and solid understanding of embedded systems; a seasoned embedded-systems technologist will gain an understanding of new application areas and new ways of addressing old problems more efficiently.     

Ontologies for information management: balancing formality, stability, and sharing scope

Ontologies are an emerging paradigm to support declarativity, interoperability, and intelligent services in many areas, such as Agent-based Computation, Distributed Information Systems, and Expert Systems. Inspired by the definition of ‘ontology’, we discuss three dimensions of information that have fundamental impact on the usefulness of ontologies for information management: formality, stability, and sharing scope of information. We briefly sketch some techniques, which are suited to find a balance (in terms of cost-benefit ratio) in each of these dimensions when building and using ontology-based information systems. We characterize roles of ontology-related actors with respect to goals, knowledge, competencies, rights, and obligations. These roles allow to form ontology societies where specific mechanisms and processes can be installed to stabilize a steady state in the three dimensions discussed. The practical use of our approach is shown in the scenario of a distributed Organizational Memory architecture.     

Traditional, iterative, and component-based development: A social analysis of software development paradigms

Information systems have always been developed through social processes, wherein actors playing a variety of specialized roles interact to produce new business applications of information technology. As systems development practices continue to evolve, an ongoing assessment of their social implications is required. This paper develops a framework for understanding the potential social implications of an emerging, component-based development paradigm. Like two alternative paradigms for systems development, the traditional life-cycle and the iterative-incremental paradigms, the new component-based paradigm requires that certain generic roles be performed to build a desired application. For each paradigm, we identify the actors who play different roles, specify the nature of their interdependence, and indicate the requirements for managing conflicts constructively. The framework may guide research into the social dynamics of system development and serve as a tentative guide to the management of information systems development.     

Knowledge transfer,translation and transformation in the work of information technology architects

ContextInformation Technology (IT) architects are the professionals responsible for designing the information systems for an organization. In order to do that, they take into account many aspects and stakeholders, including customers, software developers, the organization’s business, and its current IT infrastructure. Therefore, different aspects influence their work.ObjectiveThis paper presents results of research into how IT architects perform their work in practice and how different aspects are taken into account when an information system is developed. An understanding of IT architects’ activities allows us to better support their work. This paper extends our own previous work (Figueiredo et al., 2012) [30] by discussing aspects of knowledge management and tool support.MethodA qualitative study was conducted using semi-structured interviews for data collection and grounded theory methods (Strauss and Corbin, 1998) [5] for data analysis. Twenty-seven interviews were conducted with twenty-two interviewees from nine different companies through four cycles of data collection and analysis.ResultsCompanies divide IT architecture activities among different roles. Although these roles receive different names in different organizations, all organizations follow a similar pattern based on 3 roles: enterprise, solutions and software architects. These architects perform both the technical activities related to the IT architecture and the social activities regarding the communication and coordination with other stakeholders and among themselves. Furthermore, current tools used by IT architects lack adequate support for all these aspects.ConclusionThe activities of the different IT architects are highly interconnected and have a huge influence in the way the requirements are handled in every phase of the development of an information system. The activities of IT architects are also important for knowledge transfer, translation and transformation, since they receive from and spread information to different groups of stakeholders. We also conclude that they lack appropriate tool support, especially regarding support for their collaborative work.     

Software engineering beyond the project – Sustaining software ecosystems

ContextThe main part of software engineering methods, tools and technologies has developed around projects as the central organisational form of software development. A project organisation depends on clear bounds regarding scope, participants, development effort and lead-time. What happens when these conditions are not given? The article claims that this is the case for software product specific ecosystems. As software is increasingly developed, adopted and deployed in the form of customisable and configurable products, software engineering as a discipline needs to take on the challenge to support software ecosystems.ObjectiveThe article provides a holistic understanding of the observed and reported practices as a starting point to device specific support for the development in software ecosystems.MethodA qualitative interview study was designed based on previous long-term ethnographical inspired research.ResultsThe analysis results in a set of common features of product development and evolution despite differences in size, kind of software and business models. Design is distributed and needs to be coordinated across heterogeneous design constituencies that, together with the software, build a product specific socio-technical ecosystem. The technical design has to support the deference of part of the development not only to 3rd-party developers but also to local designers tailoring the software in the use organisation. The technical interfaces that separate the work of different design constituencies are contested and need to be maintained permanently. Development takes place as cycles within cycles – overlaying development cycles with different rhythms to accommodate different evolution drivers.ConclusionThe reported practices challenge some of the very core assumptions of traditional software engineering, but makes perfect sense, considering that the frame of reference for product development is not a project but continuous innovation across the respective ecosystem. The article provides a number of concrete points for further research.     

LyraNET: A zero-copy TCP/IP protocol stack for embedded systems

Embedded systems are usually resource limited in terms of processing power, memory, and power consumption, thus embedded TCP/IP should be designed to make the best use of limited resources. Applying zero-copy mechanism can reduce memory usage and CPU processing time for data transmission. Power consumption can be reduced as well. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of zero-copy mechanism in the target embedded TCP/IP component, LyraNET, which is derived from Linux TCP/IP codes and remodeled as a reusable software component that is independent from operating systems and hardware. Performance evaluation shows that TCP/IP protocol processing overhead can be significantly decreased by 23–63%. Besides, object code size of this network component is only 77.64% of the size of the original Linux TCP/IP stack. The experience of this study can serve as the reference for embedding Linux TCP/IP stack into a target system that requires network connectivity and improving the transmission efficiency of Linux TCP/IP by zero-copy implementation. This paper is an extended version of the paper “LyraNET: A Zero-Copy TCP/IP Protocol Stack for Embedded Operating Systems” that appeared in the 11th IEEE International Conference on Embedded and Real-Time Computing Systems and Applications. Mei-Ling Chiang received the B.S. degree in Management Information Science from National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan, in 1989. She received the M.S. degree in 1993 and her Ph.D degree in 1999 in Computer and Information Science from National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan. Now she is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Management at National Chi-Nan University, Puli, Taiwan. Her current research interests include operating systems, embedded systems, and clustered systems. Yun-Chen Lee received the B.S degree in 2002 and the M.S. degree in 2005 in Information Management from National Chi-Nan University, Puli, Taiwan. He is currently a software engineer in InterVideo Digital Tech., responsible for software development of multimedia-related products.     

A modular package manager architecture

ContextThe success of modern software distributions in the Free and Open Source world can be explained, among other factors, by the availability of a large collection of software packages and the possibility to easily install and remove those components using state-of-the-art package managers. However, package managers are often built using a monolithic architecture and hard-wired and ad-hoc dependency solvers implementing some customized heuristics.ObjectiveWe aim at laying the foundation for improving on existing package managers. Package managers should be complete, that is find a solution whenever there exists one, and allow the user to specify complex criteria that define how to pick the best solution according to the user’s preferences.MethodIn this paper we propose a modular architecture relying on precise interface formalisms that allows the system administrator to choose from a variety of dependency solvers and backends.ResultsWe have built a working prototype–called MPM–following the design advocated in this paper, and we show how it largely outperforms a variety of current package managers.ConclusionWe argue that a modular architecture, allowing for delegating the task of constraint solving to external solvers, is the path that leads to the next generation of package managers that will deliver better results, offer more expressive preference languages, and be easily adaptable to new platforms.