Deriving AO Software Architectures using the AO-ADL Tool Suite Luis Fernández, Lidia Fuentes, Mónica Pinto, Juan A. Valenzuela Universidad de Málaga AOSD Brussels, April 2008

April, 2008 AOSD 2 Agenda Problem Specification Aspect Oriented ADLs Solution Specification AO-ADL AO-ADL Decomposition Model AO-ADL Composition Model Conclusions

April, 2008 AOSD 3 Problem Specification: Aspect-Oriented ADLs Separation, Representation and Composition of crosscutting concerns at the early stages of the development Specially, the specification of crosscutting concerns at architecture level using ADLs Is not enough with the traditional ADLs We can incorporate specific elements or not The alternatives are based on the decomposition model and the composition model

April, 2008 AOSD 4 Solution Specification: AO-ADL AO-ADL is an aspect-oriented architecture description language The main contributions of AO-ADL are two: Symmetric decomposition model Extension of the semantic of connectors with aspectual composition information We specially focus on: Aspectual compositions Reutilization of connectors through the definition of Connector Templates

April, 2008 AOSD 5 AO-ADL Decomposition and Composition model Decomposition Model: Symmetric Components model crosscutting (aspectual component) and non-crosscutting behavior (base component) A component is considered an aspect when it participates in an aspectual interaction Composition Model: Crosscutting relationships in connectors Provide support to describe different kinds of interactions Typical communication Crosscutting influence Specify how ’aspectual’ components are weaved with ’base’ components during components’ communication.

April, 2008 AOSD 6 Solution Specification: AO-ADL Decomposition Model Decomposition Model: Symmetric Advantages Increases the reusability of components, which may play an aspectual or non-aspectual role depending on the particular interactions in which they participate AO-ADL explicitly and homogenously represents the dependencies of both ’aspectual’ and ’base’ components, by means of its provided and required interfaces The modularity of components is improved, solving the tangled and the scattered behavior problem earlier, at the architectural level

April, 2008 AOSD 7 Solution Specification: AO-ADL Composition Model Composition Model: Crosscutting relationships in connectors Advantages The traditional structure of ADLs is maintained even in the presence of crosscutting behaviors All the composition relationships are homogeneously modeled using the same building block The pointcut specification is not part of the ’aspectual’ component definition, but part of the connector aspectual binding specification Helps to localize in the same architectural block all aspect- oriented information The use of quantifications help to model more generic and reusable connectors

April, 2008 AOSD 8 AO-ADL Tool Suite Features It has been developed as an Eclipse plug-in Provides support to manage the repository of Components and Connectors (C&C Repository) Creation, modification and deletion of AO-ADL elements Definition and Instantiation of Connector Templates Transformation of AO-ADL elements to Theme/UML Validation of AO-ADL elements Search for any AO-ADL element (interfaces, components or connectors) following a search criterion.

April, 2008 AOSD 9 Connector Templates Reutilization of connectors Connector Templates The use of Connector Templates increase the reusability of well-known behavior patterns Through the instantiation process we can reuse the same behavior pattern is several architectures We use JET (Java Emitter Templates) as the language for the parameterization of the connectors: Is a part of an Eclipse project Allows the use of Java code in the parameterization process

April, 2008 AOSD 10 Transformation to Theme/UML Automatic transformation to Theme/UML Mapping defined in collaboration with Trinity College (Dublin), creators of Theme/UML Make easier to continue with the next stage of development process Automatic transformation to Theme/UML It allows transforming concrete elements (a component, a connector) as well as a complete architectures Use MDD technology AO-ADL Model ---- rules ----> Theme/UML Model Transformation rules implemented with ATL (ATLAS Transformation Language) Transformations can be extended to other target models (e.g. plain UML 2.0)

April, 2008 AOSD 11 Conclusions This language is the aspect-oriented integrated ADL of the AOSD-Europe Network Of Excellence on AOSD. Using AO-ADL Crosscutting behaviors (modeled by ’aspectual’ components) can be separated and reused at the architectural level Compositions between ’aspectual’ and ’base’ components (modeled by ’aspectual bindings’ inside connectors) are clearly represented at the architectural level. Behavior patterns can be reused through the definition of connector templates.

April, 2008 AOSD 12 Thank you! Luis Fernández, Mónica Pinto, Lidia Fuentes, Juan A. Valenzuela University of Málaga AO-ADL Tool Suite Update Site CAOSD Group web