UniFrame: A Unified Framework for Developing Service-Oriented, Component-Based Distributed Software Systems

Abstract

This chapter introduces the UniFrame approach to creating high quality computing systems from heterogeneous components distributed over a network. It describes how this approach employs a unifying framework for specifying such systems to unite the concepts of service-oriented architectures, a component-based software engineering methodology and a mechanism for automatically finding components on a network in order to assemble a specified system. UniFrame employs a formal specification language to define the components and serve as a basis for generating glue/wrapper code that connects heterogeneous components. It also provides a high level language for the system developer to use for inserting code in a created system to validate it empirically and estimate the quality of service it supports. The chapter demonstrates how a comprehensive approach, which involves the practicing community as well as technical experts, can lead to solutions of many of the difficulties inherent in constructing distributed computing systems.