Model Driven Integration of Heterogeneous Software Artifacts in Service Oriented Computing

Systems evolutivity requires complex operations on services, including migration, duplication, updating, and a number of administration-related actions. However, current environments are heterogeneous and require integration to manage services. It is a complex problem, because it implies a transformation of life cycle related concepts. This integration does not fit very well in the service-oriented approach: indeed this approach is consumer-centered and considers that services are hosted by third parties, while administration is a provider view. Therefore, there is a gap between technologies used to compose applications and technologies that provide them. In the context of system adaptability, this gap becomes a major challenge to be solved. The authors propose an execution environment, which provides a homogeneous service representation used to integrate: their functionalities, their life-cycle and management operations, and lifecycle related concerns, like deployment. Their approach includes two integration mechanisms: the technologies integration supported by wrappers and concerns integration supported by the run-times.