Supporting Software Development in Virtual Enterprises

Walt Scacchihttp://www.ics.uci.edu/~wscacchi

http://www.ics.uci.edu/~wscacchi/Presentations/SSDVE/

21 October 1999

© Copyright 1999, Walt Scacchi, All Rights Reserved.

Overview

• Background and Challenges

• Distributed Semantic Hypertext Workspace

• Integration and Meta-Integration

• Incorporating Process Enactment

• Related Efforts

• Discussion and Conclusions

Background and Challenges

• Present (1990): multiple autonomous, heterogeneous repositories, diverse data types, rapid change, multiple ways of viewing relationships the same entities across the Internet.

• Future: the distributed collaborative virtualization of everything informational– Everything distributed across space, time, etc.

Background

• Provide transparency: type, location, scale, source, process,…

• Maintain autonomy: multiple concurrent, overlapping “views” of shared info objects w/o centralized administration or global transaction manager

• Provide (generate?) domain-specific work environments operating across the Internet.

Challenge Problems

• Distributed Software/Systems Engineering

• Business-to-Business Electronic Commerce via rapidly composed Virtual Enterprises

• Acquisition and Engineering of Virtual Systems

Distributed Soft/Sys Engineering

Virtual Systems Acquisition (DoD)

Distributed Semantic HyperText/Media Workspace

• Objects have type, attributes and values (instances)

• Relationships/links have type, attributes and values (instances)

• Contexts (arbitrary graphs of linked objects) have type, attributes and values (instances)

• Brokers for syndicating, wrappers for interfacing, and generic methods for accessing and updating above entities

Integration and Meta-Integration

• Multi-level tool integration

• Meta-integration

• Object caching

Multi-level tool integration

• Level 0: Process integration

• Level 1: Helper applications

• Level 2: Interface to virtual file system

• Level 3: Link (relationship) aware

• Level 4: Incorporation of semantic hypertext navigation, browsing, querying and linking

Meta-Integration

• Façade, view and process integration

• Data and control integration

• Semantics and web integration

• Service/capability integration

• Integration as process executed across levels– Self-referential integration capabilities and

support mechanisms

Object Caching

• File system emulation via VFS– Re-link executables to emulation library

• Cache layer interface to frequently accessed objects

• Cache management policies– E.g., Use cached copy if TTL not expired

• Supporting heterogeneous workspace models via caching interface policies

Incorporating Process Enactment

• Processes can provide guidance, monitoring and control

• Process “link” types: decomposition, precedence and available tasks

• Process link server (cf. Sun Link Service)– Manages multiple concurrent process threads

• Process enactment as navigation

Related Efforts

• WWW vs. Distributed Semantic Web

• Updating Web servers to support primitive process link services

• Web Operating Systems

• Web Repository Management Services

• Virtual Enterprise Operating Systems– Digital Libraries– B2B Electronic Commerce

Discussion and Conclusions

• Evolutionary approach to coordination and integration

• Support for logical, physical and process integration

• Support distributed team/VE coordination via transparent process enactment

• Comprehensive solution (?) with low implementation cost

Referenceshttp:www.ics.uci.edu/~wscacchi/publications.html

• W. Scacchi, On the Power of Domain-Specific Hypertext Environments, J. American Society Information Science, 40(3):183-191, May, 1989

• J. Noll and W. Scacchi, Integrating Diverse Information Repositories: A Distributed Hypertext Approach, Computer, 24(12):38-45, December 1991.

• J. Noll and W. Scacchi, Supporting Software Development in Virtual Enterprises, J. Digital Information, 1(4), February 1999.

• W. Scacchi, Computational Business Process Components for Electronic Commerce, 1998 Intern. Workshop on Component-Based Electronic Commerce, Berkeley, CA, July 1998.

• W. Scacchi and B.E. Boehm, Virtual System Acquisition: Approach and Transitions, Acquisition Review Quarterly, 5(2):185-216, Spring 1998