Grid middleware modelling for self-adaptive deployment

Software systems are increasingly expected to be self-adaptive. Such software systems have the capability to autonomously modify their behaviour at run-time in response to changes in their environment. This capability may be included in the software systems at design time or later by external mechanisms. Therefore, along their development process multiple adaptation concerns must be considered, such as the response to changes in the utilization patterns, the need for alternative algorithms for implementing a function, or the diversity of the infrastructure. This paper describes an architecture which aims to add self-adaptive capabilities to an existing middleware so that its deployment becomes self-adaptive. The framework uses external mechanisms for that purpose since this capability was not a native feature. The paper describes also a way to model system architecture, a hierarchical middleware architecture and a middleware deployment topology.