A self-learning framework for validation of runtime adaptation in service-oriented systems

Abstract

Ensuring that service-oriented systems can adapt quickly and effectively to changes in service quality, business needs and their runtime environment is an increasingly important research problem. However, while considerable research has focused on developing runtime adaptation frameworks for service-oriented systems, there has been little work on assessing how effective the adaptations are. Effective adaptation ensures the system remains relevant in a changing environment. One way to address the problem is through validation. Validation allows us to assess how well a recommended adaptation addresses the concerns for which the system is reconfigured and provides us with insights into the nature of problems for which different adaptations are suited. However, the dynamic nature of runtime adaptation and the changeable contexts in which service-oriented systems operate make it difficult to specify appropriate validation mechanisms in advance. This thesis describes a novel consumer-centred approach that uses machine learning to continuously validate and refine runtime adaptation in service-oriented systems, through model-based clustering and deep learning. To evaluate the efficacy of the approach a medium sized health care case study was devised and implemented. The results obtained show that self-validation significantly improves the dynamic adaptation process by autonomously addressing changing user requirements at runtime. Further work in this area can improve the framework by integrating other learning algorithms as well as testing the framework on a larger case study.