SEArch: an execution infrastructure for service-based software systems

TL;DR

SEArch is a language-independent execution infrastructure that enables dynamic reconfiguration and automatic service discovery in service-based software systems using choreographic mechanisms.

Contribution

It introduces SEArch, a novel infrastructure that supports transparent dynamic reconfiguration and runtime service discovery through choreography-based interoperability contracts.

Findings

Supports automatic discovery and binding of services at runtime

Enables transparent dynamic reconfiguration of software artifacts

Uses choreographic mechanisms for interoperability contracts

Abstract

The shift from monolithic applications to composition of distributed software initiated in the early twentieth, is based on the vision of software-as-service. This vision, found in many technologies such as RESTful APIs, advocates globally available services cooperating through an infrastructure providing (access to) distributed computational resources. Choreographies can support this vision by abstracting away local computation and rendering interoperability with message-passing: cooperation is achieved by sending and receiving messages. Following this choreographic paradigm, we develop SEArch, after Service Execution Architecture, a language-independent execution infrastructure capable of performing transparent dynamic reconfiguration of software artefacts. Choreographic mechanisms are used in SEArch to specify interoperability contracts, thus providing the support needed for automatic discovery and binding of services at runtime.