Performance analysis of aspect-oriented UML models

Abstract

Aspect-Oriented Modeling (AOM) techniques allow software designers to isolate and address separately solutions for crosscutting concerns (such as security, reliability, new functional features, etc.). Current AOM research is concerned not only with the separate expression of concerns and their composition into a complete system model, but also with the analysis of different properties of such models. This paper proposes an approach for analyzing the performance effects of a given aspect on the overall system performance, after the composition of the aspect model with the system's primary model. Performance analysis of UML models is enabled by the "UML Performance Profile for Schedulability, Performance and Time" (SPT) standardized by OMG, which defines a set of quantitative performance annotations to be added to a UML model. The first step of the proposed approach is to add performance annotations to both the primary and the aspect models. An aspect model is generic at first, and therefore its performance annotations must be parameterized. A generic model is converted into a context-specific aspect model with concrete values assigned to its performance annotations. The latter is composed with the primary model, generating a complete annotated UML model. The composition is performed in both structural and Communicated by Dr. Lionel Briand. behavioural views. A novel approach for composing activity diagrams based on graph-rewriting concepts is proposed in the paper. The next step is to transform automatically the composed model into a Layered Queueing Network (LQN) performance model, by using techniques developed in previous work. The proposed approach is illustrated with a case study system, whose primary model is enhanced with some security features by using AOM. The performance effects of the security aspect under consideration are analyzed in two design alternatives, by solving and analyzing the LQN model of the composed system.

Using Model Transformation Language Semantics for Aspects Composition

“…Such concerns include security, persistence, system logging, new features in software product lines, and many others. Aspect-Oriented techniques allow software developers and architects to conceptualize and work with multiple concerns separately (Groher & Voelter, 2007;Kienzle et al, 2009;Petriu et al, 2007). These techniques allow us to modularize concerns that we cannot easily modularize with current Object-Oriented (OO) techniques (Whittle & Jayaraman, 2007).…”

“…These techniques allow us to modularize concerns that we cannot easily modularize with current Object-Oriented (OO) techniques (Whittle & Jayaraman, 2007). The final system is then produced by weaving or composing solutions from separate concerns (Petriu et al, 2007). Klein et al point out that dividing and conquering these cross-cutting concerns also allows us to better maintain and evolve software systems (Klein et al, 2007).…”

“…Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP) applies AO techniques at code level Petriu et al, 2007). AOP was introduced to enhance Object-Oriented Programming to better handle cross-cutting concerns that cause code scattering and tangling, which leads to code that is very difficult to maintain and impossible to reuse or modify.…”

“…Recent work in AO has focused on applying AO techniques much earlier in the development process (Kienzle et al, 2009;Klein et al, 2007;Morin et al, 2008;Petriu et al, 2007). In Aspect Oriented Modeling (AOM), Aspect-Oriented techniques are applied to models (unlike AOP).…”

“…For example, in a structural view, such as a class diagram, an aspect is defined in terms of classes and operations/methods whereas in a behavioral view, such as a sequence diagram, an aspect is defined in terms of messages and lifelines. This has resulted in several approaches to AOM most of which have focused on separation and weaving (composition) of structural (class diagrams) and behavioral views (sequence, activity, and state diagrams) (Klein et al, 2007;Morin et al, 2008;Petriu et al, 2007). Several approaches have been proposed for composing aspects in AOM.…”