Exploring SOA pattern performance using coupled transformations and performance models

Abstract

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) patterns can be applied to improve different qualities of SOA designs. The performance impact of a pattern (improvement or degradation) may affect its use, so we assess its impact by automatically generated performance models for the original design and for each candidate pattern and pattern variation. This paper proposes a technique to incrementally propagate the changes from the software to the performance model. The technique formally records the refactoring of the design model when applying a pattern, and uses this record to generate a coupled transformation of the performance model. The SOA design is modeled in UML extended with two profiles, SoaML and MARTE; the patterns are specified using Role Based Modeling and the performance model is expressed in Layered Queuing Networks. Application of the process, and pattern performance exploration, is demonstrated on a case study.