-ALIVE is an EU FP7 STREP whose goal is the convergence of organisational and normative modelling with and service-oriented architectures (SOAs) using model-driven software engineering. The project provides a framework for designing and implementing systems, taking into account organisational, coordination and service perspectives. A key project aspect is the integration of normative systems with live SOAs, through the distributed monitoring of normative state. Here we give a brief overview of the project, explore of the domain from a service context, outline the architecture under construction and sketch the use-cases that illustrate and inform the project.
The ALIVE architecture combines model driven
development (MDD) [
The Service Level extends existing service models, to make components aware of their social context and of the rules of engagement with other components and services, by means of semantic Web technologies. This “semantification” is particularly useful when highly dynamic and frequently changing services (the WSs in Fig. 1) are present, as the metainformation in each service description (stored in a service directory) aids tasks such as finding substitute services (either via a matchmaker or manually) when the original fails.
The Coordination Level provides the means to specify, at a
high level, the patterns of interaction among services, using
a variety of powerful coordination techniques from recent
agent research [
The Organisational Level provides a social context for the
Coordination and Service levels, specifying the organisational
rules that govern interaction and using recent developments in
organisational dynamics [
The ALIVE architecture can be seen as a service-oriented middleware supporting the combination, reorganisation and adaptation of services at both design- and run-time. These activities follow organisational patterns and adopt coordination techniques. Furthermore, the MDD paradigm offers significant developer assistance, through semi-automated transformations between models of the three levels, as well as the capacity for multiple target platforms and representation languages. More details of the theoretical and methodological aspects are available as public deliverables on the ALIVE website (http:www.ist-alive.eu).
We now outline the three use cases on which we draw to demonstrate and evaluate the effectiveness of the approach.
Intelligent tourism: The first use case (from TMT Factory (http://tmtfactory.com), a company selling smart displays for urban tourist environments) focuses on providing assistance and advice to tourists through a variety of devices (including static displays). At the organisational level the use case applies models of city, regional and national laws to tune the types of services which are offered to customers (for instance night clubs not being recommended to under 18s), at the coordination it negotiates connected services (such as transport and activities) and at the service level it interacts with existing providers (such as cinema booking services and transport planning services).
Disaster Management: The second use case (from Thales DCIS laboratory (http://www.decis.nl/)) extends existing work on the modelling and simulation of urban disasters (here the flooding of the Rotterdam harbour area). At an organisational level we model the structure and roles of the services (e.g. city councils, local and national disaster centres and emergency services) involved in handling a disaster at various scales (from simple localised flooding to a city-wide flood) and the regulations relating to how those parties interact. At the coordination level we model interactions between parties, instructions to particular agents (e.g. dispatching fire trucks to a particular area) and at the service level we link to an existing simulation environment which models the physical conditions of a flood as it happens.
Communication in Virtual Environments: The final use case (from Calico Jack Ltd. (http://www.calicojack.co.uk/), a networking research and services provider) deals with modelling human norms and conventions relating to conversation in virtual and on-line environments. The use case assumes that users are active in a number of contexts (such as FaceBook, Second life, Bebo, via SMS and over email) and handles the intelligent redirection of communication between users within these contexts, preserving modelled norms relating to those communications, such as a user’s desire not to receive unsolicited communication from unknown parties while in Second Life. At the coordination level models relationships between users and their presence in particular contexts, while at the service level the focus is on low-level interaction with the underlying services (e.g. via game APIs, or SMS gateways) and composing services to interchange information contained within communications, such as transcribing voice-mail messages to text for delivery within a text-only environment.
The key to the success of the project is integrating
state-ofthe art approaches and tools from each of the areas of interest
(organisations, coordination and services). To date, the project
has focused on developing an end-to-end methodology and
meta-model which unifies and relates concepts as follows:
(i) Using the OPERA [
Planned project deliverables include a comprehensive development methodology and a suite of Eclipse-based development tools (design and run time user assistance tools and programming libraries for system development).
Acknowledgement: This work has been supported in part by the European Commission, project FP7-215890 (ALIVE).