Engineering Self-Adaptive Systems through Feedback Loops

To deal with the increasing complexity of software systems and uncertainty of their environments, software engineers have turned to self-adaptivity. Self-adaptive systems are capable of dealing with a continuously changing environment and emerging requirements that may be unknown at design-time. However, building such systems cost-effectively and in a predictable manner is a major engineering challenge. In this paper, we explore the state-of-the-art in engineering self-adaptive systems and identify potential improvements in the design process. Our most important finding is that in designing self-adaptive systems, the feedback loops that control self-adaptation must become first-class entities. We explore feedback loops from the perspective of control engineering and within existing self-adaptive systems in nature and biology. Finally, we identify the critical challenges our community must address to enable systematic and well-organized engineering of self-adaptive and self-managing sof...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: DAGSTUHL
• Authors: Yuriy Brun, Giovanna Di Marzo Serugendo, Cristina Gacek, Holger Giese, Holger M. Kienle, Marin Litoiu, Hausi A. Müller, Mauro Pezzè, Mary Shaw
• Keywords: DAGSTUHL 2007, DAGSTUHL 2009, Engineering Self-adaptive Systems, Self-adaptive Systems, Software Systems