The Descartes Meta-model (DMM) is a new architecture-level modeling language for modeling Quality-of-Service and resource management related aspects of modern dynamic IT systems, infrastructures and services. DMM is designed to serve as a basis for self-aware resource management during operation ensuring that system QoS requirements are continuously satisfied while infrastructure resources are utilized as efficiently as possible. The term Quality-of-Service (QoS) is used to refer to non-functional system properties including performance (considering classical metrics such as response time, throughput, scalability and efficiency) and dependability (considering availability, reliability and security aspects).

The current version of DMM is focused on performance including capacity, responsiveness and resource efficiency aspects, however, work is underway to provide support for modeling further QoS properties. The meta-model itself is designed in a generic fashion and is intended to eventually support the full spectrum of QoS properties mentioned above.

DMM has a modular structure and is provided as a set of meta-models for:

• Resource Landscape
• Application Architecture
• Adaptation Points
• Adaptation Process.

These sub-meta-models can be used both in offline and online settings for application scenarios like system sizing, capacity planning and trade-off analysis. In an online setting, DMM provides the basis for self-aware resource management during operation.

The DMM core aspects and key features are:

• Reflecting different levels of service behavior abstraction
• Probabilistic modeling of dependencies between model parameters
• Detailed modeling of the resource landscape including layers like virtualization and middleware
• Description of dynamic aspects to define the system configuration space
• Adaptation language to model system adaptation processes
• End-2-end modeling approach for adaptive systems
• Implemented in 
  • Ecore with the
  • Eclipse Modeling Framework

The Descartes Meta-model is specified in the following technical report that will be published soon. You can download the preliminary version.

• S. Kounev, F. Brosig, and N. Huber. Descartes Meta-Model (DMM). Technical report, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 2012. [ bib ]

Recent presentations given at the RELATE ITN Open Excellence Workshop about the vision of the Descartes Research Group and the realization of the Descartes Meta-Model are:

• Samuel Kounev. Design-Time vs. Run-Time Models for Quality-of-Service Prediction. 2012. [ slides ]
• Fabian Brosig. New Concepts for Online Architecture-Level Performance Models. 2012. [ slides ]
• Nikolaus Huber. Model-based Run-Time Adaptation in Dynamic Virtualized Resource Landscapes. 2012. [ slides ]

1. Fabian Brosig, Nikolaus Huber, and Samuel Kounev. Modeling Parameter and Context Dependencies in Online Architecture-Level Performance Models. In Proceedings of the 15th ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Component Based Software Engineering (CBSE 2012), June 26-28 2012.
   Acceptance Rate (Full Paper): 28.5%. [ bib | .pdf ]
2. Nikolaus Huber, Fabian Brosig, and Samuel Kounev. Modeling Dynamic Virtualized Resource Landscapes. In Proceedings of the 8th ACM SIGSOFT International Conference on the Quality of Software Architectures (QoSA 2012), Bertinoro, Italy, June 25-28 2012. Acceptance Rate (Full Paper): 25.6%. [ bib | .pdf ]
3. Nikolaus Huber, André van Hoorn, Anne Koziolek, Fabian Brosig, and Samuel Kounev. S/T/A: Meta-Modeling Run-Time Adaptation in Component-Based System Architectures. In 9th IEEE International Conference on e-Business Engineering (ICEBE 2012), Hangzhou, China, September 9-11 2012. Acceptance Rate (Full Paper): 19.7% (26/132). [ bib | http | .pdf ]