A Cooperative Approach to Support Software Deployment using the Software Dock

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A Cooperative Approach to Support Software
Deployment using the Software Dock
Richard Hall
Alexander Wolf
Dennis Heimbigner
Software Engineering Research Laboratory Universit
y of Colorado
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Software Deployment

• Software Deployment covers all post-development
  activities like release, installation,
  reconfiguration and un-installation.

Conventional Methods CD Installations
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Producer Side Processes
Consumer Side Processes
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Requirements for better deployment

• Continuous Support
• Efficient Use of Internet
• Centralized Repository
• Heterogeneity
• Decentralized Control for Activities
• Security

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Software Dock Description

• Distributed, Agent-Based Framework.
• Release dock Producer Side
• Field dock Consumer Side
• Wide Area Event systems - Network
• Agents

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Software Dock Overview
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Deployable Software Description (DSD)

• Requirement
• Need of a standard language to be able to
  describe the software system to be deployed.
• To be able to map semantic information of the
  Software System onto properties.
• Five classes of Semantic information
• Configuration
• Assertions
• Dependencies
• Artifacts
• Activities

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Deployable Software Description (DSD)

• DSD
• declarative description of the possible
  configurations of that software
• Helps Create Generic Deployment Process
  Definitions.
• Unit of Description Families, set of all
  versions and variants of a given software system
• similar to the notion of a product-line
• XML encoding of the configuration information

• Contains following sections identification,
  imported properties,
• system properties, property composition,
  assertions, dependencies,
• artifacts, interfaces, notifications,
  services, and activities
• Some directly map on to a semantic class,
  others combine to
• map on to one.

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Deployable Software Description (DSD)

• Examples
• Property
• Name Online Help
• Type Boolean
• Description Include online help.
• Assertion
• Condition (OS Solaris)
• (OS Win95)
• Description Test for supported
• operating system.

Artifacts Artifact Guard (OS
Solaris) SourceName help.html Source
/proj/doc DestinationName help.html Destin
ation doc Mutable false Signature3b8902d
3410ec832 Type Documentation
Artifact Guard (OS
Win95) SourceName help.hlp Source
/proj/doc DestinationName
help.hlp Destination doc Mutable
false Signature 9283cd2378102f1a3b12ee Type
Documentation
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Software Dock Process

• The software deployment is defined by the agents
  which are the active components of the framework.
• The Software Dock framework allows the creation
  of generic agents which perform the standard
  deployment activities.
• The Generic agents also form the base class for
  more specialized agents that are used for more
  specific tasks.

• All agents have functionality encoded in them,
  and perform the
• deployment activities by accepting
  parameters from the DSD first,
• and then the target consumer site.
• So they can used for deploying ANY software
  system.

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Software Dock Process

• Generic Deployment Process Definition
• The Software Deployment takes place by the
  transformation of the property values from one
  set of valid values into another.
• The change take place via differential processing
  of the applicable schema elements in the DSD.
• The applicable schema is obtained via the the
  guard conditions present all over the DSD.
• The differential processing converts the existing
  system configuration into the desired
  configuration.

• Most of the deployment activities take place
  with the DSD,
• and later on, only those artifacts that need
  to be changed
• are brought in.

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Software Dock Process

• Generic Deployment Process Definition
• Specific Deployment Process Definition
• Install
• Update
• Reconfigure
• Adapt
• Remove

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Security

• Security
• JVM sandbox limits the Agent access the
  customers system
• Field docks use a capability approach based on
  the agents inherent capability to grant access
  for restricted operations.
• This approach can be extended to adopt a
  mechanism by which agents can become trusted

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Current Status

• A Software Dock prototype exists
• SIENA provides wide area event service.
• Evolving definition of the DSD exists
• A schema editor is provided to create and edit
  DSD descriptions
• Docking Station provides updates, adapts,
  reconfigures and removes
• Generic agents are provided for various
  deployment processes

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Future Work

• Provide an Administrator Role
• Remote Agents
• InterDock
• The DSD will be extended and expanded
• Enhanced Administration policy
• Arbitrary dependency specification will be
  researched

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Summary

• Software Deployment is beyond Just Installation.
• Standard format for Software Systems Description
  (DSD)
• Modern Deployment should harness the capabilities
  provided by the Internet.

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Strengths

• Easy to understand
• In-depth coverage of the Software Deployment Life
  Cycle.
• Identification of better software deployment
  requirements.

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Weaknesses

• Security has not been adequately addressed.
• Software Dock needs to be tested against various
  Deployment tools.
• Not enough coverage on Dock entities.
• Too much stress on DSD.

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Relevance to Embedded Systems

• Dock operates in JVM Sandbox, and hence addresses
  issues of resource Constraints.
• Wide area Event Service does not cater to real
  time constraints due to network issues.
• Inadequate Security.