COPA-CASE: Methodological environment for the generation, application and validation of coordination patterns

Abstract

Design Patterns have demonstrated to be an appropriate mechanism to reuse the solution of a common problem. Design patterns allow reducing time and costing in the development of complex systems. Particularly in coordination systems, the solution to a problem can be generalized constituting a coordination pattern that can be applied to another problem where the components are related following the same cooperation rules. In this paper, a set of tools to define and apply coordination patterns is presented. These tools interact with a formal environment to simulate the coordinated behavior by means of executing the system specifications. The patterns are designed considering the coordination as a transparent and independent aspect from the particular functionality of each component in the coordination system. This way, the reusing and modification of the coordination patterns and the components to be coordinated are facilitated. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.