A Generative Middleware Specialization Process for Distributed Real-Time and Embedded Systems

Abstract

Abstract-General-purpose middleware must often be specialized for resource-constrained, real-time and embedded systems to improve their response-times, reliability, memory footprint, and even power consumption. Software engineering techniques, such as aspect-oriented programming (AOP), feature-oriented programming (FOP), and reflection make the specialization task simpler, albeit still requiring the system developer to manually identify the system invariants, and sources of performance and memory footprint bottlenecks that determine the required specializations. Specialization reuse is also hampered due to a lack of common taxonomy to document the recurring specializations. This paper presents the GeMS (Generative Middleware Specialization) framework to address these challenges. We present results of applying GeMS to a Distributed Real-time and Embedded (DRE) system case study that depict a 21-35% reduction in footprint, and a36% improvement in performance while simultaneously alleviating97% of the developer efforts in specializing middleware.

A Generative Middleware for Heterogeneous and Distributed Services

“…Schmidt et al [7] use a modeling approach to generate Distributed Real-time and Embedded Component Middleware and Applications. More recently, in [8], Dabholkar et al highlights the benefits of providing a Generative Middleware Specialization Process for Distributed Real-Time and Embedded Systems. The HEADS approach mainly focuses in enabling a simple integrating of some viewpoints with existing programming language to simplify the complex integration of modern systems.…”