Welcome to REMICS

Cloud computing and SOA are recognized game-changing technologies[1] for a cost-efficient and reliable service delivery. Software as a Service paradigm becomes more and more popular enabling flexible license payment schemas and moving the infrastructure management costs from consumers to service providers. However, building a SaaS system from scratch may require a huge investment in time and efforts. Moreover, the organizations legacy systems are difficult to reuse due to platform, documentation and architecture obsolescence.

 

OMG MDA (Model Driven Architecture) and related efforts around domain-specific languages have gained much popularity. These technologies put the model in the centre of the software engineering process (MDE). The software products are built with subsequent model refinements and transformations from business models (process, rules, motivation), down to component architectures (e.g. SOA), detailed platform specific design and finally implementation.  Similarly, OMG ADM (Architecture Driven Modernization) proposes to start with knowledge discovery to recover models and to re-build the new system in a forward MDA process.

EU projects like MODELWARE and MOMOCS have proved the feasibility of MDE and ADM, respectively, and productivity gains. SHAPE has provided a large set of methods for aligning business models, SOA and implementations. RESERVOIR has developed a generic cloud computing platform. However these approaches have major weaknesses in the current state:

  • There are no standards for platform independent modelling combining SOA and cloud computing for SaaS design.
  • The knowledge discovery is often limited to reverse engineering of legacy code. The business process and rules recovery is poorly addressed.
  • The Service Clouds architecture migration methods are mostly ad-hoc and lack a comprehensive methodology addressing dedicated design patterns and transformations.
  • There is a lack of methods for service interoperability on model level.
  • There are no dedicated testing technologies for Service Clouds migration validation.
  • The usage of models during runtime is not defined.

 The OMG ADM task force proposed a holistic view on modernization[2] including the business models. OMG has now started a standardization process for PIM (Platform Impendent Model) for Cloud Computing (currently PIM4Cloud draft RFP). 

REMICS proposes a leap progress in legacy systems migration to Service Clouds by providing a model driven methodology and tools, which significantly improve the baseline ADM concept. This will be achieved through driving the standardization work in OMG including PIM4Cloud specification, and support and increase impact further by providing project results under open source licences.

[1] Economic and Social Impact of Software & Software-Based Services, D2 – The European Software Industry, Pierre Audoin Consultants Report,  July 30, 2009. ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/fp7/ict/docs/ssai/20090730-d2-eu-ssbs-industry.pdf

[2] ADMTF: Architecture-Driven Modernisation: Transforming the Enterprise, http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?admtf/07-12-01.pdf

REMICS is a FP7 project