itemis takes part in EU research project on service-orientated architecture (SOA)
EU and eight European industry and research partners develop quality prediction for SOA projects
Abstract
itemis, a leading IT company in model-driven software development (MDSD), is continuing to expand its activities in the SOA field and is taking part in a three-year EU research project. The project will develop a method for converting software to service-orientated architectures and will also examine the impact of this on the quality of service and maintainability of the software systems after conversion to SOA. itemis belongs, along with seven partners from five different countries, to a group of specially chosen market and technology leaders who are bundling their SOA skills as part of the research project »Quality Impact Prediction for Evolving Service-orientated Software« (Q-ImPrESS). The EU and research partners are investing around 5 million euros in the project.
Q-ImPrESS is part of the 7th EU framework programme and incorporates the fields of information and communication technology. Financing is being provided for the work in service and software architectures, infrastructure and technology. Select fields of research are being supported in the objective of establishing the EU as a world leader in these fields. The main innovation of this project, which is being co-ordinated by the Research Centre for Information Technology in Karlsruhe (FZI), lies in bringing together the quality of service prediction method and a maintainability evaluation of service-orientated architectures which are in planning, with a software restructuring method. Thanks to the new approach of linking the quality evaluation with the software restructuring, the project reached the top of European ICT research in service and software architectures, infrastructure and technology.
Together with partners ABB, Softeco Sismat and Ericsson Nikola Tesla from industry, as well as partners from science – The Research Centre for Information Technology in Karlsruhe, Sweden’s »Mälardalen University«, Italy’s »Politecnico di Milano« and the Czech »Charles University in Prague«, itemis is working on the development of the prediction method with the corresponding tools. Furthermore, basic recommendations for the introduction of the SOA systems will also be developed, case studies from industry will be presented by demonstrators and comprehensive information on SOA will be compiled. With this project the public will also have access to all information on the prediction method, the open source tools, as well as the case studies. The findings made in the project as well as the methods and tools developed, should enable service-orientated architectures to be used, also in business critical applications.
»Service-orientated software offers businesses the potential to make their business processes more flexible and adapt quicker to changing demands and market conditions. The risk that attributes relevant to the quality may get out of control during the migration could, in certain circumstances, cancel out the benefits of the service orientation. Applications which have a very business critical function and quality are, therefore, still significantly lagging behind. This is where we want to create security with Q-ImPrESS and support the migration with tools. The involvement of itemis was an important enrichment for the project right from the start as itemis can contribute its bundled expertise from the fields of SOA and model-driven software development«, said Prof. Dr. Ralf Reussner, Director of the FZI.
»We recognise the benefits and the enormous potential of this project and look forward to being able to actively co-operate in such innovative research. We are contributing our expertise from our main fields of work, such as service-orientated architectures, model-driven software development as well as in Open Source based tool chains, for the benefit of the project. After successful project completion, the methodology developed in Q-ImPrESS could be developed further to a product which could later be applied to industry«, said Achim Baier, itemis Managing Director in Pforzheim.