Time, event and self-management aspects in model-driven development of information systems

Cross-cutting concerns, or aspects, are parts of the system that in standard design mechanisms are scattered across multiple program components, and tangled with other components. The ideas of separation of cross-cutting concerns, originated from aspect-oriented programming (AOP), have gained attention in aspect-oriented design (AOD) and model-driven development (MDD), endeavoring to aspect-oriented decomposition and composition at model level. This paper focuses on adequate representing of time, events and management concerns in information systems owning behavior inspired by system agents. Event-based aspect-oriented approach seems to be the most appropriate solution for this situation, although it lacks smooth methodology going from requirements to code and often is hidden in technological level. Time aspect, thoroughly analyzed in embedded and real-time systems, also lacks of proper attention in the area of information systems despite it is closely related to many information system projects. To fill the gap, the method of design independent modeling was extended with concepts and techniques for time, event and self-management aspects modeling in model-driven information system development