Architecture-Level Configuration of Large-Scale Embedded Software Systems

Abstract

Configuration in the domain of Integrated Control Systems (ICS) is largely manual, laborious, and error prone. In this article, we propose a model-based configuration approach that provides automation support for reducing configuration effort and the likelihood of configuration errors in the ICS domain. We ground our approach on component-based specifications of ICS families. We then develop a configuration algorithm using constraint satisfaction techniques over finite domains to generate products that are consistent with respect to their ICS family specifications. We reason about the termination and consistency of our configuration algorithm analytically. We evaluate the effectiveness of our configuration approach by applying it to a real subsea oil production system. Specifically, we have rebuilt a number of existing verified product configurations of our industry partner. Our experience shows that our approach can automatically infer up to 50% of the configuration decisions, and reduces the complexity of making configuration decisions.