Workshop on Dependable Middleware-Based Systems

Abstract

While middleware technologies, such as CORBA, EJB and DCOM, are gaining adoption is most application domains, there is still some reluctance in deploying middleware in mission-critical systems with high dependability requirements. Recognizing the need for dependable middleware, several research, industrial and standardization efforts have focussed independently on specific pieces of this dependability puzzle, but have not collectively attempted to solve the entire puzzle. One specific objective of this one-day Workshop is to bring together the leading researchers and practitioners (and therefore, the pieces of the puzzle) in this area, to discuss their insights on dependable middleware, along with the open issues and the challenges that they still face. To this end, some of the presentations at WDMS 2002 will cover practical experiences with, and lessons learned in using and testing, dependable middleware in the field; yet other presentations will uncover novel research ideas that are on the cutting edge in the design and implementation of dependable middleware. Because there is an equally increasing need for middleware-based systems to exhibit, in addition to dependability, many other ”-ilities” (such as survivability, adaptability, scalability, availability, mobility, security, real-time, etc.), another objective of this Workshop is to look at the composition of various other interesting ”-ilities” with dependability. Our exciting technical program covers a range of issues in dependable middleware, and consists of 16 high-quality papers (selected from a collection of 26 submissions, after review by the WDMS 2002 Program Committee) organized into four sessions. Some of the presentations are aimed specifically at discussing the marriage of real-time with dependability, live upgrades with dependability, etc. We expect that future research on reliable middleware will be founded on some of the ideas that will be presented at this Workshop, and those that will inevitably arise from the discussions that follow. In keeping with the true open spirit of a Workshop, WDMS 2002 is intended to serve as a forum for fostering freespirited technical exchanges and healthy debate. Practitioners from industry and researchers from academia will present their latest practices, ideas, technologies, standards and systems for building dependable middleware-based applications. These presentations will set the stage for the Workshop participants to explore, collectively, ways of making today’s middleware technologies more robust, and to investigate the enhancement of existing dependable middleware with other ”-ilities”.