Requirements for Component Integration Technology

David Lewis

FlowThru Technical Co-ordinator

Department of Computer Science

University College London

dlewis@cs.ucl.ac.uk

FlowThru Overview

• EU funded- started Mar’98, ends Feb’00• Partners:

– Waterford Institute of Technology(IRL), STS(UK), AlgoSystems(GR), GMD-Fokus(DE), TCD (IRL), UHC (DK), Alcatel Bell (BE), UCL (UK), Surrey University (UK), Alcatel Corporate Research (FR)

• Input from:– Previous ACTS projects implementing advanced

(often-TINA based) management systems– EURESCOM: methodology, trouble ticketting– Standards from TINA, TMF, ITU-T, OMG

FlowThru Goals

• To provide validated Guidelines on how to build management system from Reusable Components, that satisfy Business Process requirements

• Disseminate results to industry via Guidelines:– Development Methodology: UML, OOSE, use cases, facades– Component Integration Technology: CORBA

Components/EJB, Workflow, technology gateways

• Integrate existing components from ACTS projects and demonstrate working integrated management systems– Similar to catalyst projects built from research implementations– Separate demonstrators for fulfilment, assurance and

accounting

FlowThru Business ContextStandards Developers

Software Vendors

Service Provider

Service Customer

3rd Party Service Provider

open standards

open standards

management systemsmanagement applications

management servicesmanagement

services

components and platforms

Mgmt System

Developers

Development

Operations

Broad Component Integration Requirements

• Need common mechanisms for usefully representing components at different stages of management system development lifecycle

• Need to hide heterogeneity/evolution in distribution technologies from component developer/user

• Components must directly support business processes and their interactions

• Need clear mechanisms for adapting components to application requirements

• Need to be able to “componentise” legacy systems

FlowThru Approach

database

CMIP CORBA

TMN APIworkflow agent

workflow engine

workflow application

data

component event mechanism

CMIPagent

CORBA-CMIP

gateway

CORBA Components/EJB• Container:

– distribution support– persistency support– lifecycle support– transactions– security– event management– resource management (threads, logging, resource sharing)

• Component:– multiple interfaces– emitted events– properties– introspection– session and entity types

Workflow Overview

WorkflowEngine

ManagementService Request

ManagementProcess

Rule Base

ManagementProcess

Rule Base

SharedShared(Component)(Component)Data ServerData Server

SharedShared(Component)(Component)Data ServerData Server

InvokedInvokedComponentComponent

InvokedInvokedComponentComponent InvokedInvoked

ComponentComponentInvokedInvoked

ComponentComponentInvokedInvoked

ComponentComponentInvokedInvoked

ComponentComponent

Workflow Components

• Control flow between components delegated to Workflow engine

• Data passed between components via common data server

• CORBA Workflow Agents used wrap components• Workflow agents offer simple one way control flow

operations and emit events on completion/exception• FlowThru investigating wrapping legacy management

components in workflow agents

TINA Object Model

Object 2

Object 1

Object 3

ComputationalObjects

Object group

OperationalInterfaces

StreamInterfaces

• TINA Object Definition Language (ODL)- strict superset of IDL

• Multiple interfaces, stream interfaces, object groups

• Version now submitted to ITU-T SG-10

Software

i/fDesignmodel

exports

i/fexports

i/fUse casemodel

exports

Component Modelling with Facades

trace

Requirements Capture

Requirements Analysis

Design

Implementation

Testing

Requirements

model

Analysismodel

Software

Designmodel

trace

Component

i/f

exports

trace

Deploy

facade

Analysismodel

Comparison to GB909

• TINA and CORBA Components/EJB address many of the contract issues

• Workflow embodies the strict separation of business and persistent data, also present in EJB session and entity bean types

• CORBA Components/EJB and Facades go further in support for component development, selection, modification and integration

• FlowThru could undertake an assessment of CORBA Components/EJB, WorkFlow and TINA ODL against GB909 is deemed useful