Distributed Systems Group
Guido Wirtz · 2010
of the net in almost all areas, distributed systems have become one of the most important topics for nowadays software industry. Owing to their ever increasing importance for everyday business, distributed systems have high requirements with respect to dependability, robustness and performance. Unfortunately, distribution adds its share to the problems of developing complex software systems. Heterogeneity in both, hardware and software, permanent changes, concurrency, distribution of components and the need for inter-operability between dierent systems complicate matters. Moreover, new technical aspects like resource management, load balancing and guaranteeing consistent operation in the presence of partial failures and deadlocks put an additional burden onto the developer. The long-term common goal of our research eorts is the development, implementation and evaluation of methods helpful for the realization of robust and easy-to-use software for complex systems in general while putting a focus on the problems and issues regarding distributed systems on all levels. Our current research activities are focussed on dierent aspects centered around that theme: Reliable and inter-operable Service-oriented Architectures: Development of design methods, languages, tools and middle-ware to ease the development of SOAs with an emphasis on provable correct systems that allow for early design-evaluation due to rigorous development methods. Additionally, we work on approaches and standards to provide truly inter-operable platforms for SOAs. Implementation of Business Processes and Business-to-Business-Integration (B2Bi): Starting from requirements for successful B2Bi development processes, languages and systems, we investigate the practicability and inter-operability of dierent approaches and platforms for the design and implementation of business processes with a focus on combining processes from dierent business partners. Quality-of-Service (QoS) Aspects for SOA and B2Bi: QoS aspects, especially reliability and security, are indispensable when putting distributed systems into practical use. We work on methods that allow for a seamless observance of QoS aspects during the entire development process from high-level business processes down to implementation platforms. Agent and Multi-Agent (MAS) Technology: Development of new approaches to use MultiAgent-Systems for designing, organizing and optimizing complex systems ranging from service management and SOA to electronic markets and virtual enterprises. Visual Programming- and Design-Languages: The goal of this long-term eort is the utilization of visual metaphors and languages as well as visualization techniques to make design- and programming languages more understandable and, hence, more easy-to-use.