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Automated Configuration in Adaptive IoT Software Ecosystems to Reduce Manual Device Integration Effort: Application and Evaluation of a Novel Engineering Method

Authors:
Fabian Burzlaff
Steffen Jacobs
Christian Bartelt

Keywords: Semantic Interoperability; Knowledge Reuse; Soft-ware Component Compatibility; Engineering Methods

Abstract:
Existing scientific approaches that integrate non-standardized software components automatically are seldom used in practice. Consequently, practitioners currently rely on standardization initiatives or they implement software adapters manually. However, standards quickly lose their claim for correctness as fast innovation cycles prohibit timeliness of machine-understandable domain standards for open and dynamically evolving software ecosystems. Although scientifically driven approaches can be applied in order to automatically generate software adapters reliably, they require a formal mapping specification for all possible integrations between a provided and a required interface at system design-time. In contrast, imprecise matching approaches based on service specifications can be applied at run-time but cannot produce reliable interface mappings. In this paper, we provide our first evaluation for a novel integration method that can integrate components automatically based on incomplete mapping knowledge. Although this method explicitly embraces manual integration efforts, we aim at achieving automatic adapter generation by making additionally formalized integration knowledge reusable. By storing integration knowledge only when a concrete use case is present, generated software adapters remain reliable. Using an empirical within-subject evaluation design, we quantify how reusing formal interface mappings can speed up integration tasks in an agile development setting. We expect the proposed method to be applied in adaptive software ecosystems that evolve in short innovation cycles such as the Internet-of-Things.

Pages: 40 to 47

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2020

Publication date: April 26, 2020

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4146

ISBN: 978-1-61208-781-8

Location: Nice, France

Dates: from October 25, 2020 to October 29, 2020