TY - THES A1 - Ghahremani, Sona T1 - Incremental self-adaptation of dynamic architectures attaining optimality and scalability T1 - Inkrementelle Selbstanpassung dynamischer Architekturen zum Erreichen von Optimalität und Skalierbarkeit N2 - The landscape of software self-adaptation is shaped in accordance with the need to cost-effectively achieve and maintain (software) quality at runtime and in the face of dynamic operation conditions. Optimization-based solutions perform an exhaustive search in the adaptation space, thus they may provide quality guarantees. However, these solutions render the attainment of optimal adaptation plans time-intensive, thereby hindering scalability. Conversely, deterministic rule-based solutions yield only sub-optimal adaptation decisions, as they are typically bound by design-time assumptions, yet they offer efficient processing and implementation, readability, expressivity of individual rules supporting early verification. Addressing the quality-cost trade-of requires solutions that simultaneously exhibit the scalability and cost-efficiency of rulebased policy formalism and the optimality of optimization-based policy formalism as explicit artifacts for adaptation. Utility functions, i.e., high-level specifications that capture system objectives, support the explicit treatment of quality-cost trade-off. Nevertheless, non-linearities, complex dynamic architectures, black-box models, and runtime uncertainty that makes the prior knowledge obsolete are a few of the sources of uncertainty and subjectivity that render the elicitation of utility non-trivial. This thesis proposes a twofold solution for incremental self-adaptation of dynamic architectures. First, we introduce Venus, a solution that combines in its design a ruleand an optimization-based formalism enabling optimal and scalable adaptation of dynamic architectures. Venus incorporates rule-like constructs and relies on utility theory for decision-making. Using a graph-based representation of the architecture, Venus captures rules as graph patterns that represent architectural fragments, thus enabling runtime extensibility and, in turn, support for dynamic architectures; the architecture is evaluated by assigning utility values to fragments; pattern-based definition of rules and utility enables incremental computation of changes on the utility that result from rule executions, rather than evaluating the complete architecture, which supports scalability. Second, we introduce HypeZon, a hybrid solution for runtime coordination of multiple off-the-shelf adaptation policies, which typically offer only partial satisfaction of the quality and cost requirements. Realized based on meta-self-aware architectures, HypeZon complements Venus by re-using existing policies at runtime for balancing the quality-cost trade-off. The twofold solution of this thesis is integrated in an adaptation engine that leverages state- and event-based principles for incremental execution, therefore, is scalable for large and dynamic software architectures with growing size and complexity. The utility elicitation challenge is resolved by defining a methodology to train utility-change prediction models. The thesis addresses the quality-cost trade-off in adaptation of dynamic software architectures via design-time combination (Venus) and runtime coordination (HypeZon) of rule- and optimization-based policy formalisms, while offering supporting mechanisms for optimal, cost-effective, scalable, and robust adaptation. The solutions are evaluated according to a methodology that is obtained based on our systematic literature review of evaluation in self-healing systems; the applicability and effectiveness of the contributions are demonstrated to go beyond the state-of-the-art in coverage of a wide spectrum of the problem space for software self-adaptation. N2 - Die Landschaft der Software-Selbstanpassungen ist von der Notwendigkeit geprägt, zur Laufzeit und angesichts dynamischer Betriebsbedingungen kosteneffizient (Software-)Qualität zu erreichen und aufrechtzuerhalten. Optimierungsbasierte Lösungen führen eine umfassende Suche im Anpassungsraum durch und können daher Qualitätsgarantien bieten. Allerdings machen diese Lösungen das Erreichen optimaler Anpassungspläne zeitintensiv und behindern dadurch die Skalierbarkeit. Umgekehrt führen deterministische regelbasierte Lösungen nur zu suboptimalen Anpassungsentscheidungen, da sie typischerweise an Annahmen zur Entwurfszeit gebunden sind. Sie bieten jedoch eine effiziente Verarbeitung und Implementierung, Lesbarkeit und Ausdruckskraft einzelner Regeln und unterstützen so eine frühzeitige Überprüfung der Korrektheit. Um den Kompromiss zwischen Qualität und Kosten anzugehen, sind Lösungen erforderlich, die gleichzeitig die Skalierbarkeit und Kosteneffizienz des regelbasierten Strategieformalismus und die Optimalität des optimierungsbasierten Strategieformalismus als explizite Artefakte für die Anpassung berücksichtigen. Utility-Funktionen, d.h. Spezifikationen auf abstrakter Ebene, die Systemziele erfassen, unterstützen die explizite Behandlung des Qualität-Kosten-Kompromisses. Dennoch sind Nichtlinearitäten, komplexe dynamische Architekturen, Black-Box-Modelle und Laufzeitunsicherheit, die das Vorwissen überflüssig macht, einige der Quellen von Unsicherheit und Subjektivität, die die Utility-Erhöhung nicht trivial machen. Diese Arbeit schlägt eine zweifältige Lösung für die inkrementelle Selbstanpassung dynamischer Architekturen vor. Zunächst stellen wir Venus vor, eine Lösung, die in ihrem Design einen regel- und optimierungsbasierten Formalismus kombiniert und so eine optimale und skalierbare Anpassung dynamischer Architekturen ermöglicht. Venus enthält regelartige Konstrukte und nutzt die Utility-Theorie für die Entscheidungsfindung. Mithilfe einer graphbasierten Darstellung der Architektur erfasst Venus Regeln als Graphmuster, die Architekturfragmente darstellen, und ermöglicht so die Erweiterbarkeit zur Laufzeit und damit die Unterstützung dynamischer Architekturen. Die Architektur wird bewertet, indem den Fragmenten Utility-Werte zugewiesen werden. Die graphbasierte Definition von Regeln und Utility ermöglicht die inkrementelle Berechnung von Änderungen der Utility, die sich aus Regelausführungen ergeben, anstatt die gesamte Architektur zu bewerten, was die Skalierbarkeit verbessert. Des weiteren stellen wir HypeZon vor, eine Hybridlösung zur Laufzeitkoordination mehrerer Standardanpassungsstrategien, die typischerweise nur eine partielle Erfüllung der Qualitäts- und Kostenanforderungen bieten. HypeZon wurde auf der Grundlage der meta-selbstwahrnehmenden Architekturen umgesetzt und ergänzt Venus durch die Wiederverwendung bestehender Strategien zur Laufzeit, um den Kompromiss zwischen Qualität und Kosten auszubalancieren. Die zweifältige Lösung aus dieser Dissertation ist in eine Anpassungs-Engine integriert, die zustands- und ereignisbasierte Prinzipien für die inkrementelle Ausführung nutzt und daher für große und dynamische Softwarearchitekturen mit wachsender Größe und Komplexität skalierbar ist. Die Herausforderung der Erhöhung der Utility wird durch die Definition einer Methodik gelöst, die zum Trainieren von Modellen zur Vorhersage von Utility-Änderungen verwendet wird. Die Dissertation befasst sich mit dem Qualität-Kosten-Kompromiss bei der Anpassung dynamischer Softwarearchitekturen durch Entwurfszeitkombination (Venus) und Laufzeitkoordination (HypeZon) von regel- und optimierungsbasierten Strategieformalismen und bietet gleichzeitig unterstützende Mechanismen für optimale, kosteneffektive, skalierbare und robuste Anpassung. Die Lösungen werden nach einer Methodik bewertet, die auf unserer systematischen Literaturrecherche zur Bewertung von selbstheilenden Systemen basiert. Die Anwendbarkeit und Wirksamkeit der Lösungen geht nachweislich über den Stand der Technik hinaus und deckt ein breites Spektrum des Problembereichs der Software-Selbstanpassung ab. KW - self-healing KW - self-adaptive systems KW - architecture-based software adaptation KW - utility functions KW - prediction models KW - meta self-adaptation KW - model-driven engineering KW - scalable KW - architekturbasierte Softwareanpassung KW - Meta-Selbstanpassung KW - modellgesteuerte Entwicklung KW - Vorhersagemodelle KW - skalierbar KW - selbstanpassende Systeme KW - selbstheilende Systeme KW - Utility-Funktionen Y1 - 2024 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-624232 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ghahremani, Sona A1 - Giese, Holger A1 - Vogel, Thomas T1 - Improving scalability and reward of utility-driven self-healing for large dynamic architectures JF - ACM transactions on autonomous and adaptive systems N2 - Self-adaptation can be realized in various ways. Rule-based approaches prescribe the adaptation to be executed if the system or environment satisfies certain conditions. They result in scalable solutions but often with merely satisfying adaptation decisions. In contrast, utility-driven approaches determine optimal decisions by using an often costly optimization, which typically does not scale for large problems. We propose a rule-based and utility-driven adaptation scheme that achieves the benefits of both directions such that the adaptation decisions are optimal, whereas the computation scales by avoiding an expensive optimization. We use this adaptation scheme for architecture-based self-healing of large software systems. For this purpose, we define the utility for large dynamic architectures of such systems based on patterns that define issues the self-healing must address. Moreover, we use pattern-based adaptation rules to resolve these issues. Using a pattern-based scheme to define the utility and adaptation rules allows us to compute the impact of each rule application on the overall utility and to realize an incremental and efficient utility-driven self-healing. In addition to formally analyzing the computational effort and optimality of the proposed scheme, we thoroughly demonstrate its scalability and optimality in terms of reward in comparative experiments with a static rule-based approach as a baseline and a utility-driven approach using a constraint solver. These experiments are based on different failure profiles derived from real-world failure logs. We also investigate the impact of different failure profile characteristics on the scalability and reward to evaluate the robustness of the different approaches. KW - self-healing KW - adaptation rules KW - architecture-based adaptation KW - utility KW - reward KW - scalability KW - performance KW - failure profile model Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1145/3380965 SN - 1556-4665 SN - 1556-4703 VL - 14 IS - 3 PB - Association for Computing Machinery CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ghahremani, Sona A1 - Giese, Holger T1 - Evaluation of self-healing systems BT - An analysis of the state-of-the-art and required improvements JF - Computers N2 - Evaluating the performance of self-adaptive systems is challenging due to their interactions with often highly dynamic environments. In the specific case of self-healing systems, the performance evaluations of self-healing approaches and their parameter tuning rely on the considered characteristics of failure occurrences and the resulting interactions with the self-healing actions. In this paper, we first study the state-of-the-art for evaluating the performances of self-healing systems by means of a systematic literature review. We provide a classification of different input types for such systems and analyse the limitations of each input type. A main finding is that the employed inputs are often not sophisticated regarding the considered characteristics for failure occurrences. To further study the impact of the identified limitations, we present experiments demonstrating that wrong assumptions regarding the characteristics of the failure occurrences can result in large performance prediction errors, disadvantageous design-time decisions concerning the selection of alternative self-healing approaches, and disadvantageous deployment-time decisions concerning parameter tuning. Furthermore, the experiments indicate that employing multiple alternative input characteristics can help with reducing the risk of premature disadvantageous design-time decisions. KW - self-healing KW - failure model KW - performance KW - simulation KW - evaluation Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/computers9010016 SN - 2073-431X VL - 9 IS - 1 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Weis, Philipp A1 - Hess, Andreas A1 - Kircher, Gunnar A1 - Huang, Shilin A1 - Auernhammer, Günter K. A1 - Koynov, Kaloian A1 - Butt, Hans-Jürgen A1 - Wu, Si T1 - Effects of Spacers on Photoinduced Reversible Solid-to-Liquid Transitions of Azobenzene-Containing Polymers JF - Chemistry - a European journal N2 - Photoisomerization in some azobenzene-containing polymers (azopolymers) results in reversible solid-to-liquid transitions because trans- and cis-azopolymers have different glass transition temperatures. This property enables photoinduced healing and processing of azopolymers with high spatiotemporal resolution. However, a general lack of knowledge about the influence of the polymer structure on photoinduced reversible solid-to-liquid transitions hinders the design of such novel polymers. Herein, the synthesis and photoresponsive behavior of new azopolymers with different lengths of spacers between the polymer backbone and the azobenzene group on the side chain are reported. Azopolymers with no and 20 methylene spacers did not show photoinduced solid-to-liquid transitions. Azopolymers with 6 or 12 methylene spacers showed photoinduced solid-to-liquid transitions. This study demonstrates that spacers are essential for azopolymers with photoinduced reversible solid-to-liquid transitions, and thus, gives an insight into how to design azopolymers for photoinduced healing and processing. KW - azobenzenes KW - isomerization KW - photochemistry KW - polymers KW - self-healing Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.201902273 SN - 0947-6539 SN - 1521-3765 VL - 25 IS - 46 SP - 10946 EP - 10953 PB - Wiley-VCH CY - Weinheim ER - TY - GEN A1 - Ghahremani, Sona A1 - Giese, Holger T1 - Performance evaluation for self-healing systems BT - Current Practice & Open Issues T2 - 2019 IEEE 4th International Workshops on Foundations and Applications of Self* Systems (FAS*W) N2 - Evaluating the performance of self-adaptive systems (SAS) is challenging due to their complexity and interaction with the often highly dynamic environment. In the context of self-healing systems (SHS), employing simulators has been shown to be the most dominant means for performance evaluation. Simulating a SHS also requires realistic fault injection scenarios. We study the state of the practice for evaluating the performance of SHS by means of a systematic literature review. We present the current practice and point out that a more thorough and careful treatment in evaluating the performance of SHS is required. KW - self-healing KW - failure profile KW - evaluation KW - simulator KW - performance Y1 - 2019 SN - 978-1-7281-2406-3 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1109/FAS-W.2019.00039 SP - 116 EP - 119 PB - IEEE CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Farhan, Muhammad A1 - Rudolph, Tobias A1 - Nöchel, Ulrich A1 - Kratz, Karl A1 - Lendlein, Andreas T1 - Extractable Free Polymer Chains Enhance Actuation Performance of Crystallizable Poly(epsilon-caprolactone) Networks and Enable Self-Healing JF - Polymers N2 - Crosslinking of thermoplastics is a versatile method to create crystallizable polymer networks, which are of high interest for shape-memory actuators. Here, crosslinked poly(epsilon-caprolactone) thermosets (cPCLs) were prepared from linear starting material, whereby the amount of extractable polymer was varied. Fractions of 5-60 wt % of non-crosslinked polymer chains, which freely interpenetrate the crosslinked network, were achieved leading to differences in the resulting phase of the bulk material. This can be described as "sponge-like" with open or closed compartments depending on the amount of interpenetrating polymer. The crosslinking density and the average network chain length remained in a similar range for all network structures, while the theoretical accessible volume for reptation of the free polymer content is affected. This feature could influence or introduce new functions into the material created by thermomechanical treatment. The effect of interpenetrating PCL in cPCLs on the reversible actuation was analyzed by cyclic, uniaxial tensile tests. Here, high reversible strains of up to Delta epsilon = 24% showed the enhanced actuation performance of networks with a non-crosslinked PCL content of 30 wt % resulting from the crystal formation in the phase of the non-crosslinked PCL and co-crystallization with network structures. Additional functionalities are reprogrammability and self-healing capabilities for networks with high contents of extractable polymer enabling reusability and providing durable actuator materials. KW - shape-memory polymer actuators KW - soft actuators KW - self-healing KW - poly(epsilon-caprolactone) KW - thermoplastics Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/polym10030255 SN - 2073-4360 VL - 10 IS - 3 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER -