Towards Adaptable and Adaptive Policy-Free Middleware

TL;DR

This paper introduces a flexible, language-independent framework for adaptive, policy-free middleware that enables dynamic policy configuration and context-aware adaptation for distributed applications.

Contribution

It presents a novel adaptable and adaptive policy framework that supports dynamic policy specification and context-based policy selection in middleware systems.

Findings

Framework supports dynamic policy changes

Enables context-aware policy adaptation

Applicable across various middleware systems

Abstract

We believe that to fully support adaptive distributed applications, middleware must itself be adaptable, adaptive and policy-free. In this paper we present a new language-independent adaptable and adaptive policy framework suitable for integration in a wide variety of middleware systems. This framework facilitates the construction of adaptive distributed applications. The framework addresses adaptability through its ability to represent a wide range of specific middleware policies. Adaptiveness is supported by a rich contextual model, through which an application programmer may control precisely how policies should be selected for any particular interaction with the middleware. A contextual pattern mechanism facilitates the succinct expression of both coarse- and fine-grain policy contexts. Policies may be specified and altered dynamically, and may themselves take account of dynamic conditions. The framework contains no hard-wired policies; instead, all policies can be configured.