Abstract
With the emergence of various forms of smart devices and new paradigms such as the Internet of Things (IoT) concept, the IT (Information Technology) service areas are expanding explosively compared to the provision of services by single systems. A new system operation concept that has emerged in accordance with such technical trends is the IT ecosystem. The IT ecosystem can be considered a special type of system of systems in which multiple systems with various degrees of autonomy achieve common goals while adapting to the given environment. The single systems that participate in the IT ecosystem adapt autonomously to the current situation based on collected data from sensors. Furthermore, to maintain the services supported by the whole IT ecosystem sustainably, the configuration of single systems that participate in the IT ecosystem also changes appropriately in accordance with the changed situation. In order to support the IT ecosystem, this paper proposes an architecture framework that supports dynamic configuration changes to achieve the goal of the whole IT ecosystem, while ensuring the autonomy of single systems through the collection of data from sensors so as to recognize the situational context of individual participating systems. For the feasibility evaluation of the proposed framework, a simulated example of an IT ecosystem for unmanned forest management was constructed, and the quantitative evaluation results are discussed in terms of the extent to which the proposed architecture framework can continuously provide sustainable services in response to diverse environmental context changes.
Highlights
We live in an age where almost every hour of our daily routine involves interactions with devices powered by software applications
A ceaseless change in weather plays a role as an external factor that causes the evolution in the IT ecosystem of the unmanned forest management system, the result is based on a simulated environment
We aimed to prove the adaptation effect of the proposed mechanism by comparing the cost, benefit, and collaboration score for each of the IT ecosystem configurations measured for cases in which the orchestration mechanism in response to the environment change was or was not applied
Summary
We live in an age where almost every hour of our daily routine involves interactions with devices powered by software applications. Many of those devices are equipped with features that enable them to intake information and make autonomous decisions. Sensors 2018, 18, 562; doi:10.3390/s18020562 www.mdpi.com/journal/sensors “System of systems”, a term that has been used since the 1950s, refers to a system or collective of independent constituent systems that perform in collaboration to achieve a single common goal [6]. The name of the concept refers to its similarity with biological ecosystems where constituent lifeforms interactively evolve their shapes and behaviors to achieve a common goal: survival. Cases of implementing IT ecosystems have been introduced in various types of application domains [11,12,13,14,15], but these are only example cases that show the feasibility of the IT ecosystem concept; no empirical evaluation results have yet been provided
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