A CSP-Based Approach for Managing the Dynamic Reconfiguration of Software Architecture

Abstract

Software applications are composed of a set of interconnected software components running on different machines. Most of these applications have a dynamic nature and need to reconfigure structure and behavior at run-time. The dynamic reconfiguration of software is a problem that must be dealt with. Reconfiguring this kind of applications is a complicated task and risks to take software at an undesirable situation. In this paper, the authors present a solution whose objective is to provide a complete support for reconfiguring and formally verifying consistency of dynamic updates of software before performing them. The aim is to provide highly available systems with the ability to safely modify their structure and behavior at run-time. The proposed approach is based mainly on the use of the meta-model concept for reconfiguration structural checking, and the CSP language, refinement technique, and the FDR model checking tool for the verification of reconfiguration behavioral consistency. The authors have also developed a tool prototype that validates and implements their proposals.