{FIDJI_02} "An Experience in Architectural
Extensions: Active Objects in J2EE" P. Inverardi, F. Mancinelli, H. Muccini, and P.
Pelliccione.
In Proc. Int. Workshop on Scientific Engineering of Distributed Java
Applications (FIDJI'2002), November 2002, Luxembourg. Lecture
Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) 2604, pp. 87 ff.
Abstract:
In this paper we present an experience in
architectural extension. The goal of our project was to
provide Active Objects in the Java 2 Enterprise
Edition (J2EE) reference architecture by
suitable extensions that should not violate the
architectural J2EE principles. Our approach to the problem
was rather formal. We first formalized the notion of
Active Object, the basic
characteristics of the J2EE model and its component model
Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB). Then, driven by the peculiar
characteristics of an active object, we investigated
several possible architectural extensions. The solutions
were formalized as well and their consistency with the
J2EE model was validated by using model checking
techniques. In this way we discovered that
only one of them was acceptable. The whole formalization
and validation has been carried out by using the Charmy
environment. In Charmy the architectural formalization
makes use of
diagrammatic notations, Scenarios and State Diagrams, and
SPIN is the target model checking engine.
