Rainbow: architecture-based self-adaptation with reusable infrastructure

TLDR

Architecture‑based self‑adaptation faces challenges in supporting diverse systems and minimizing the cost of adding external control. The Rainbow framework seeks to solve these scalability and cost issues by providing a unified, reusable approach. Rainbow delivers reusable architecture‑based infrastructure and customizable specialization mechanisms that let developers choose which system aspects to model, monitor, trigger, and adapt.

Abstract

While attractive in principle, architecture-based self-adaptation raises a number of research and engineering challenges. First, the ability to handle a wide variety of systems must be addressed. Second, the need to reduce costs in adding external control to a system must be addressed. Our rainbow framework attempts to address both problems. By adopting an architecture-based approach, it provides reusable infrastructure together with mechanisms for specializing that infrastructure to the needs of specific systems. The specialization mechanisms let the developer of self-adaptation capabilities choose what aspects of the system to model and monitor, what conditions should trigger adaptation, and how to adapt the system.