GSpace: An architectural approach for self-managing extra-functional concerns

Middleware-based solutions for self-managing systems provide a degree of separation between the mechanisms that govern the adaptability of a system and application functionality. Systems become in this way more flexible, dependable and robust to changes. However, it is possible to achieve another degree of separation by separating from the application logic the different extra-functional concerns (such as availability, performance, and security). This separation, known as Separation of Concerns principle, helps in generating software artifacts that are more maintainable and reusable. In this paper, we propose an architectural model for a middleware-based solution where the self-managing principle is applied to extra-functional concerns. Our middleware, based on the Shared Data Space model, is capable of dynamically adapt extra-functional concerns to the actual needs of the applications.