An adaptation platform for multimedia applications CSC (component, service, connector)
| Pages | 4-22 |
| Date | 17 March 2012 |
| Published date | 17 March 2012 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/13287261211221119 |
| Author | Makhlouf Derdour,Philippe Roose,Marc Dalmau,Nacira Ghoualmi‐Zine |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
An adaptation platform for
multimedia applications CSC
(component, service, connector)
Makhlouf Derdour
LRS, Badji Mokhtar-Annaba University, Annaba, Algeria
Philippe Roose and Marc Dalmau
LIUPPA, IUT of Bayonne, Bayonne, France, and
Nacira Ghoualmi-Zine
LRS, Badji Mokhtar-Annaba University, Annaba, Algeria
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a supervised adaptation platform for
applications-based components.
Design/methodology/approach – The platform is designed using a model based top-down
approach. The authors use UML diagrams and particularly scenarios and activity diagrams.
Findings – The CSC (component, service and connector) platform is based on a component/service
model that allows adaptation of component-based applications and uses service-oriented architecture
for providing adaptation services to be embedded in adaptation connectors.
Originality/value – The paper proposes CSC, a self-adaptation platform based on MMSA, to
describe software architectures for multimedia-oriented application and providing adaptation
capabilities. The platform is based on services and offer architecture, with three layers particularly
adapted to adaptation of multimedia flow (types, formats, properties) and which allows solving the
heterogeneity problems of components.
Keywords Parts, Computersoftware, Multimedia, Components,Connectors, Software architecture,
Adaptation
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Ubiquitous systems are designed to make communication possible anytime, anyhow
and anywhere. These systems must be used in different contexts depending on the
environment of the user, his profile and his device. The mutualisation of the means of
communication and the tendency towards all multimedia caused a major problem of
heterogeneity of the multimedia flows exchanged between the components of such a
system. Future multimedia ubiquitous systems must have the capacities of adaptation,
and thus being able to modify the system configuration and/or the multimedia contents
at any time.
As part of ubiquitous computing, the environment of an application is composed of
heterogeneous machines (PCs, PDAs, Smartphone, etc.) with various hardware
resources (screen size, interaction modes, memory, battery, network interfaces, etc.)
belonging to users with different needs and handling media from various types (video,
sound, image, text). These characteristics require structuring of application in an
organization of independents entities which cooperate and interact in order to facilitate
its adaptation to the context of use.
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Journal of Systems and Information
Technology
Vol. 14 No. 1, 2012
pp. 4-22
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1328-7265
DOI 10.1108/13287261211221119
Unfortunately this structural and behavioral organization does not make it possible
to solve all heterogeneity problems. According to the respect of functional constraints,
replacing a component with another one claims the satisfaction of several conditions
and verifying several properties (homogeneity of the components, coherence of the
assembly, stability of the application, traceability of adaptation choices, etc.). That
requires a reflection on the design (in particularly on the configuration of applications).
This reflection consists in separating the functional aspects from those of the
adaptation and to provide dynamic and reconfigurable mechanisms during the life
cycle of the application.
The development of an adaptation system raises two questions: how to design a
platform to ensure dynamic adaptations? How to design adapters to ensure the
adaptations? The important aspects for the design of content adaptation solution are
the diversity of content, description of the environment, context management and
adaptation. As for heterogeneous environments, the adaptation occurs at several
levels: the user environment (noisy, dark, geographical, etc.), the terminal (screen size,
codec, etc.) and the components of application (communication interfaces, client-server,
RPC, etc.). That is why the design and the implementation of such a system imply
efforts in various fields.
There are two main axes for adaptation of component-based applications, that of the
functional adaptation like MUSIC (Rouvoy et al., 2009) and MADcAR (Grondin et al.,
2006) based on the reassembly or the reconfiguration, and that of the non-functional
adaptation like SCL (Fabresse et al., 2008) based on the behavior of components. In our
approach we worked on non-functional adaptations of flows exchanged between
components in order to resolve the data interactions heterogeneity problem. We do not
seek modification or replacement of features, but adapt them to the runtime context.
This may result in adaptations of assemblies (call of different service, redeployment,
replacement of components/services, etc.) in order to preserve the same functionality
but with different quality of service.
The massive introduction of multimedia data with ubiquitous/pervasifs systems
leads to handle various media types involving several problems influencing the
interaction of the components such as the heterogeneity of data flows exchanged
between those components. These problems deals with to the size of data (video streams
are difficult to manage depending on the type of connection), the encoding of data
(formats, codec, containers, encoding quality), modality (text received while the person is
blinded, etc.). The adaptation services are a solution to solve this problem which
represents one of the major challenges of such applications. They propose mechanisms
allowing and ensuring the adaptation of multimedia data flows exchanged between
heterogeneous components. According to this point of view, CSC proposes an exe cuting
adaptation platform of multimedia applications.
The main entity of our proposal is the connector entity (having a non-functional
character), which proposes solutions to answer the problems of adaptation in the
business components and allows resolution of heterogeneous data without changing
the functionality of such system. It is represented by a component of first class. It is the
first class because he does not just have the traditional roles associated with the
communication but also supports the adaptation of data (in a unit way or by assembly
of connectors). This type of connector is becoming reconfigurable and able to adapt the
multimedia data flow according to the situation.
Multimedia
applications CSC
5
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