A Cooperative Approach to Support Software Deployment Using the Software Dock by R. Hall, D. Heimbigner, A. Wolf

1. A Cooperative Approach to Support Software Deployment Using the Software Dockby R. Hall, D. Heimbigner, A. Wolf Sachin Chouksey Ebru Dincel

2. Outline • What is Software Deployment ? • Software Deployment Life Cycle • Software Dock (Architecture) • Deployable Software Description (DSD) Format • Software Dock Processes • Current, Related & Future Work. • Wrap-up

3. Release Install Adapt Reconfigure Update Activate Deactivate Remove Retire What is Software Deployment?

4. Then Complete Installation procedure for software system on CD ROM Entire software system installation Now Software producers and consumers cooperating and negotiating. “Update” of Software Systems How is it changing ? All this because of high connectivity

5. What do we need from deployment technologies ? • Support for heterogeneity in terms of platforms and network environments. • Semantic model to describe software systems. • Semantic model to describe target sites. • Decentralized control for both software producers and consumers.

6. Software Deployment Definitions • Previously • Installation of a software system. • Simplistic & Incomplete view. • Currently • An evolving collection of inter-related activities. • Software deployment life cycle.

7. Software Deployment Life Cycle • Producer side • Release • Retire • Consumer side • Install • Activate/Deactivate • Reconfigure • Update • Adapt • Remove

8. Software Dock Architecture Components • Release Dock • Field Dock • Inter Dock • Agents • Event Service

9. Architecture: Release Dock • Server residing at producer. • Repository of software systems. • Web-based release mechanism. • Std. deployment schema for each release. • Agents perform deployment process. • Programmatic interface for agents. • Generates events for changes made to a release. • Agents subscribe to events.

10. Architecture: Field Dock • Server residing at consumer. • Provides interface to consumer site. • Site resources and configuration (context). • Agents dock here and access interface. • Standardized, hierarchical information registry for a common namespace.

11. Architecture: Agents • Implement actual functionality. • Only agent and software system description loaded onto consumer site from release dock. • Agent configures system for that target site. • Precise set of corresponding artifacts and other agents then downloaded.

12. Architecture: Event Service • Connectivity between software producers and consumers. • Remote agents subscribe to events. • Uses standard protocols over the internet.

13. Architecture: Inter Dock • Future implementation. • Support for “Administrator” role. • Administrator can specify activity that should occur at a specific or set of sites. • Global view of consumer organization. • Complicated deployment scenarios addressable.

14. Where are We ? • What is Software Deployment ? • Software Deployment Life Cycle • Software Dock (Architecture) • Deployable Software Description (DSD) Format • Software Dock Processes • Current, Related & Future Work • Wrap-up

15. Schema of deployment information System as collections and configurations of properties Property { Name = “ Online Help” Type = “Boolean” Description = “Include online help.” ….} Simple, generic, hierarchical way of describing software system family/component based development Critical piece of Software Dock Elements - Configuration - Assertions - Dependencies - Artifacts - Activities Deployable Software Description (DSD)

16. DSD: Configurations • Relationships between software artifacts. • Resources provided by software system.

17. Consumer-side constraints for a successful deployment. Assertion { Condition = “($OS$ = =‘Solaris’) || ($OS$ = =‘Win95’)” Description = “Test for supported operating system.” ….} DSD: Assertions

18. DSD: Dependencies • Consumer-side constraints where a resolution is possible if the constraint does not hold (e.g installing dependent subsystems).

19. Physical artifacts of the software system. Artifacts { Guard = “($Online Help$ = = true)” Artifact { Guard = “($OS$ = = ‘Solaris’)” SourceName =“help.html” Source = “/proj/doc” Destination = “doc” Mutable = false Signature = “a4ca443b” Type = “DOC” …} Artifact {……} ….} DSD: Artifacts

20. DSD: Activities • Any specialized activities outside of standard deployment process.

21. Software Dock Processes • Generic - Differential processing • Specific - Install (pull) - Update (pull/push, new DSD) - Reconfigure (pull, existing DSD) - Adapt (pull, enforces consistency, existing DSD) - Remove (pull)

22. Related Work • Configuration Management Tools (e.g. Adele, PCL,..) - no deployment or schema • Schema based (e.g. OSD, AMS, ..) - not mature enough for automation, centralized • Script based (e.g. GNU AutoConf,..) - not rich enough, heuristics • Recent utilities (e.g. InstallShield, netDeploy, ..) - not rich enough for automation, better support Immature, partial support for deployment activities, and not standardized

23. Ongoing Work • Current Java Prototype http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~serl - SIENA (event notification) - Voyager (IPC, mobile agents) - schema editing tool (DSD editing, artifact entry) - dock station tool (interface for deployment process) • Future - higher security (JVM 2.0) - remote agents and server - extended DSD - administration policies

24. Software Dock Advantages • Decentralized through cooperation. • Scalability due to centralization. • Asynchronous, bi-directional communication. • Unification of description and process. • Support for various deployment processes. • Sophisticated configuration management. • Support for multi-platform. • Extensibility, reliability and standardization (schemas and elements). • Better performance results.

25. Issues in an Embedded Environment • Security (“trusted” mobile agents). • Authentication and authorization. • Resource constrained environments. • Run-time reconfiguration, update, and down time. • Platform changes (e.g. hardware). • Real-time guarantees. • Fault-tolerance, graceful degradation of service.