Annual Report 2010 - Fachgruppe Informatik an der RWTH Aachen ...

communication, the scheduling and instantiation of components and resources, or the
handling the authentication and access rights. However, these additional aspects threaten to
further complicate the development of software.
We address these challenges using model-based approaches. Employing appropriate models,
specific aspects of cloud software such scaling, distribution and integration can be described
in an abstracted, condensed and coherent way and kept separated from the actual business part
of the software. The models are mapped upon concrete realizations using generative
techniques. Code generators abstract from the technological heterogeneity of the cloud by
generating different variants from the same models, generate proven management and
security mechanisms and ensure meaningful default behavior based on defined conventions.
This approach is applied on different levels of a cloud’s typical anatomy and in the context of
different scenarios:
Passepartout focuses on the a-posteriori integration of cloud-based services and applications
by end-users in an easy to use manner. Integration is achieved by semi-autonomously sharing
managed data and establishing collaborations (workflows) between services and applications.
Data and workflows are specified using appropriate models. The models are used to configure
a user-centric online service that manages the assets of one person in the cloud, in particular
his online data and his desired automatable online workflows. This service acts as the central
hub for data storage and provisioning as well as workflow orchestration.
The Energie Navigator serves as an exemplary scenario for an extension of existing software
in order the use cloud facilities. An scheduling component estimates the computation needed
for specific tasks and outsources large tasks to other instances of the software that are
executed in the cloud and instantiated on demand.
Continuous Requirements Management
T. Gülke and B. Rumpe
In cooperation with VOLKSWAGEN AG
Main tasks include analyzing the requirements-process during product development at
VOLKSWAGEN AG in Wolfsburg and suggesting improvements. During three years,
interviews with VW employees are held as well as tools evaluated and best practices in other
industries and companies discovered. As a result, hidden processes, tools, and documents
which contribute in some way to the discovery, engineering, and management of
requirements are mapped out.
Since not only software-requirements are being included, a brief search throughout the whole
product-development process is necessary to get together the whole picture. Marketing,
product management as well as vehicle and prototype testing and many other departments and
teams are being analyzed during this project. While trying to find similarities between
documents and processes, abstract data models are constructed to prepare the introduction of
a continuous requirements management tool. This allows for the explicit documentation of the
results and knowledge extracted during the work.
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