4.3 WP2 – Architectural Approaches

This WP aims to elicit and monitor the architectural approaches taken within the different Research Themes. This is done with the goal of identifying, expressing and examining similarities and differences between different architectural approaches. Where similarities exist between architectural approaches the potential for merging approaches will be examined. Where differences exist these shall be investigated in order to extract any fundamental differences in approach. This iterative process of architectural reflection, reconciliation and refinement will provide ongoing improvement in the shared understanding of the various research directions conducted under the M-Zones programme. This is essential in providing the context good communication of results within the programme and to external parties – especially when considering the eclectic range of research activities conducted under the programme. This understanding will also help identify new, complementary lines of research and their relationship to existing research activities.

As different researchers will start their research from very different directions, a viewpoint oriented approach will be adopted to defining the different architectural approaches. These viewpoints must span a variety of concerns from business/social aspects, to logical/structural aspects, expressive and methodological techniques and engineering/technology issues. Orthogonal to these viewpoints, consideration must be given to the human experience of different roles that will benefit from the intended research results, from end users to developers to administrator/operators. No viewpoint will be considered pre-eminent, so individual descriptions can start from one viewpoint and gradually consider issues in the other viewpoints. Depending on the viewpoint(s) from which descriptions start some unevenness in the level of detail to which different descriptions cover different viewpoints will be expected at different points in time. The aim, however, is that all approaches should eventually form an opinion on all the viewpoints, so that for example, research driven from business level concerns must at some point address technology issues, while technology-driven research must at some point express the business domain to which it applies.

A core part of describing the architectural approaches within the individual research themes will be assembling and growing a shared model of the ubiquitous management problem domain. Such a shared model must capture a minimal set of concepts that define the problem domain and establish sufficient common understanding so that the different architectural approaches can be more readily compared and contrasted. The problem domain model will entail the definition of common concepts, e.g. ‘Smart Space’, ‘User’, ‘Service’ and the relationships and constraints that exist between them. In addition, scenarios may be produced to further explain and detail the problem domain. The description of individual architectural approaches will use of problem domain model as a context and may refine the common scenario to explore further the subset of the problem domain that a particular architectural approach is used to research. The problem domain model will be refined over the lifetime of the project to reflect the emerging research results, changes in the state of the art and refinement and reconciliation of the different architectural approaches.