IST


EUCOSM Project Proposal

Last edited 2003/12/02

Note: This proposal of an integrated project was submitted to address the «Open development Platforms for software and services» strategic objective of the IST FP6 Call2. The proposal was not selected by the commision.

Proposal Abstract

Middleware has become a central element in the development of networked services, such as e-commerce and e-government, as witnessed by the growing importance of de facto standards such as Sun’s J2EE and Microsoft .Net. Middleware has also become a key software infrastructure in a number of multi-segment industries such as the telecommunications industry and the command and control (e.g. transport, automotive, and aerospace) industries. However, considering the increasing variety of applications, the increasingly dynamic nature of target environments, and the resultant complexity of the systems involved, the current middleware technology is severely lacking in malleability, scalability, dependability and self-management capabilities:

  1. • Malleability concerns the ability to easily deploy, dynamically reconfigure, control and manage distributed systems, while retaining efficiency and predictability in their execution.

  2. • Autonomous Management concerns the ability for a distributed system to control and manage its resources, functions, security and performance, in the face of failures and changes, with little or no human intervention

  3. • Quality of Service concerns the ability for a distributed system to provide identified quality of service guarantees (e.g. response times, throughput, and tolerance to accidental faults) in their execution.

  4. • Scalability concerns the ability for a system to scale across a variety of dimensions (number of objects, network size, processing capacities, etc).


These constitute difficult scientific and technological challenges, that can only be met by bringing together researchers and developers covering a wide spectrum of expertise such as: component-based system design and construction, reflective distributed systems, distributed algorithms, distributed computing services, distributed programming models, real-time and dependable systems, etc.

In this context, the overall goal of the EUCOSM project is to develop a new generation of middleware technology that addresses the above challenges. The EUCOSM project consortium assembles and integrates the efforts of a critical mass of industrial and academic expertise to meet these challenges. The EUCOSM middleware technology will develop along three main lines:

  1. • A reflective component-based middleware architecture and its supporting software frameworks and tools.

  2. • A set of generic, highly configurable component-based software services, covering four key areas: scalable and reliable information dissemination, availability and timeliness, autonomous management, and the composition and orchestration of on-line services.

  3. • A highly available, configurable and scalable J2EE-compliant platform, which will integrate the more mature technology of the project.


To maximise its societal and economic impact, the EUCOSM project will follow an original exploitation path, using open source to disseminate its technology results, and leveraging an existing open source initiative, the ObjectWeb Consortium, as its prime vehicle for knowledge and technology transfer. The longer term objectives of the ObjectWeb consortium – the development of open source, component-based middleware – are perfectly in line with the EUCOSM project goals. ObjectWeb thus provides an established co-operative development structure and a proven exploitation path for the EUCOSM project results.


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