Q-compiler: Metadata QoS-aware programming and compilation framework

Ubiquitous computing promises an execution environment that pervasively delivers applications to the user, despite changes in resources, devices, and locations. In a ubiquitous environment, the users' demands for distributed applications such as e-business, and media streaming, that require different aspects of Quality of Service (QoS) features, have grown rapidly. Component technology has become widely-accepted for enabling the rapid construction of applications, in a ubiquitous environment. The available component technologies, such as Enterprise Javabeans, CORBA Component Model, .NET and COM+, however, do not consider QoS issues to be fundamental. The lack of a standard, quality-aware, component architecture makes the available programming models less applicable for developing and deploying component-based quality-aware applications. Furthermore, specific QoS semantics of off-the-shelf application service components (e.g., multimedia and real-time messaging) and QoS-enabling technologies (e.g., middleware and resource management) add to the complexity for translations and mappings between interoperable service components, both in the same layer and across layers; and in end-systems and distributed systems. The effective development and deployment of a component-based quality-aware application are primarily dependent on the application developer's expertise. Finally, the traditionally-developed quality-aware application is tightly-coupled with specific service components. Hence, it might not be adaptable to a new deployment environment, due to the unavailability of required software components, devices, and/or resources.; This dissertation presents the Q-Compiler, which is a novel meta-data QoS programming and compilation framework for developing and deploying quality-aware applications. The Q-Compiler extends standard component construction with QoS-related meta-data. It proposes a set of translation models and their compilations which enable semantic interoperability among interoperable components' specific QoS requirements and provisions. It provides a set of high-level, customizable application specifications which hides the complexity of quality-aware programming. It provides a meta-data compilation which validates quality consistency of an application composition, and promotes configurability and efficiency of application deployment. The Q-Compiler's run-time support assists the compilations in preparing required QoS-related information, and uses the compilation result in running an application. In this dissertation, although the main contributions of the framework are validated via multimedia applications, we anticipate that the fundamental concepts and design will be applicable to other application domains.