Establishing a Service Tree-Based Approach of Complex Systems

Large systems providing end-user services require a robust and manageable component-based implementation. Examples of such systems are web-based and other distributed systems with many users, public utilities (such as electricity and gas supply), or the core infrastructure that powers the digital convergence in the Information Society. Their implementation comprises a heterogeneous set of cooperating components, which rely on the services of each other. When a failure is detected in a system service, it is necessary to determine which other (possibly end-user) services may be affected by the failure. Moreover, the source of the failure should be identified as well. This calls for modeling approaches that enable an expressive and hierarchical description of service dependencies. A possible approach, the service tree, uses labeled dependency graphs. It provides a model-driven basis to meet the above requirements, supporting Domain-Specific Modeling and automated model processing. Current paper outlines the basics of the service tree-based modeling approach.