See a more recent post on this same topic including our new position paper
Yesterday, we had a nice brainstorming session about the relationship between modeling (and model-driven engineering) and cloud computing.
A first research line (more “traditional”) in the area consists in investigating the use of MDE to automate the adaptation and enhancement of software applications to become cloud-enabled . This process can be regarded as a specific software modernization scenario in which existing software should be considered as legacy software (from a cloud point of view) that needs to be evolved to take advantage of the benefits of cloud computing. Our model-driven reverse engineering framework ( MoDisco ) will be helpful in this matter.
Another promising research line is what we have named as MaaS : Modeling as a Service providing modeling and model-driven engineering services from the cloud . Some topics that would fit in this area would be: collaborative and distributed modeling tools, model transformation engines in the cloud, modeling mash-ups (combining model-driven engineering services from different providers), global model management and scalable model-based services in the cloud to deal with very large models and model transformations.
This is just the result of an unstructured initial brainstorming but of course we welcome any feedback and suggestions!!
FNR Pearl Chair. Head of the Software Engineering RDI Unit at LIST. Affiliate Professor at University of Luxembourg. More about me.
Hi Jordi,
Interesting brainstorm!
Recently I wrote a piece ON the same subject starring Model-Execution-AS-a-Service.
I think this IS an important step IN Model Driven Engineering. Modeling ‘automates’ development, Model-Execution-AS-a-Service automates the deployment part OF delivering applications.
Regards,
Johan
Hi Johan,
Thanks for the pointer to your post. Indeed, MEaaS is a very important part of what we call MaaS!
I’m Rubén Jiménez FROM Icinetic. I think you met Lucas, our CEO, IN an video conference. We ARE working IN a diploma thesis WITH a University OF Barcelona student, developing a adaptation OF our MDE tool TO generate IN the cloud. We ARE USING MS Azure AS a server OF generation, AND we’re studying the performance improvement and the possible adoption of a ‘assets generation AS a service’ from a local modeling as a business model.
Jordi,
Maybe you should check out Dutch company Verum as well. They offer model validation as a service, albeit only for models generated using their own tool set at the moment.
Grtz,
Angelo
Twitter: @delphino-cons
Hi Jordi,
another hot thing in this context I’d love to see/make happen: a Progressive Web App Modeller (adoptable and elaborated plugin framework, storing to git repo as backend). If someone’s willing to collaborate on that, I’m in and I’m already warming up my fingers, but it’s presently not top prio on my list.
Andreas
Andreas,
Just to clarify: You’d like to see a modeling tool implemented as a progressive web app or a modeling tool able to generate progressive web apps?
The former – that could be groundbreaking, if well done (open, extensible, lingua franca support, fine UX, versioning with git(hub)).
The latter would be nice, as well, but a more or less straight-forward MDx job.
I agree. A very ambitious goal. I think most modeling tools are still trying to understand how they can move to a more online modeling environment somehow.
Unfortunately, I see them more trying to replicate what they have than really rethinking the way modeling could be done in a new environment.
Yes – which is funny, in a way. Given the publication date of this blog entry and the indeed massively increased potential of MDx these days of exploded complexity.