Automating Decisions in Component Composition Based on Propagation of Requirements

Abstract

Automatic component composition is a way to achieve selfcustomizable systems that are able to adapt themselves through structural configuration to changing conditions in their environment. In this paper, we propose an automatic composition strategy for multi-flow architectures with hierarchically composable components. Our composition strategy takes automatic decisions for the composition of a target that is specified through a set of required properties imposed over its given structural constraints. The composition decisions are taken knowing the properties provided by individual available components. Properties characterize functional or non-functional aspects of a component. The composition strategy is driven by a mechanism of propagation of required properties, detailed in this paper. © Springer-Verlag 2004.