Configuration support for system description, construction and evolution

Abstract

Software systems can be conveniently described, constructed and managed in terms of their configuration, where configuration is the system structure defined as the set of constituent software components together with their interconnections. A specification of the system confiig;uration can be used both to describe the required system structure and to generate the actual system itself. Evolution of the system is achieved by monitoring the status of the components and making extensions or changes to the system configuration by the addition of software components or the replacement of existing ones. The performance of these tasks at the configuration level is termed configuration programming, and is best supported by the use of a declarative configuration language and associated support tools. This paper discusses the main princilples of this approach and illustrates its practice by describing the support which has been provided in the Conic environment for distributed systems.