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Change is the only constant: dynamic updates for workflows

Authors:

Daniel Sokolowski,

Pascal Weisenburger,

Guido SalvaneschiAuthors Info & Claims

ICSE '22: Proceedings of the 44th International Conference on Software Engineering

Pages 350 - 362

https://doi.org/10.1145/3510003.3510065

Published: 05 July 2022 Publication History

Abstract

Software systems must be updated regularly to address changing requirements and urgent issues like security-related bugs. Traditionally, updates are performed by shutting down the system to replace certain components. In modern software organizations, updates are increasingly frequent---up to multiple times per day---hence, shutting down the entire system is unacceptable. Safe dynamic software updating (DSU) enables component updates while the system is running by determining when the update can occur without causing errors. Safe DSU is crucial, especially for long-running or frequently executed asynchronous transactions (workflows), e.g., user-interactive sessions or order fulfillment processes. Unfortunately, previous research is limited to synchronous transaction models and does not address this case.

In this work, we propose a unified model for safe DSU in workflows. We discuss how state-of-the-art DSU solutions fit into this model and show that they incur significant overhead. To improve the performance, we introduce Essential Safety, a novel safe DSU approach that leverages the notion of non-essential changes, i.e., semantics preserving updates. In 106 realistic BPMN workflows, Essential Safety reduces the delay of workflow completions, on average, by 47.8% compared to the state of the art. We show that the distinction of essential and non-essential changes plays a crucial role in this reduction and that, as suggested in the literature, non-essential changes are frequent: at least 60% and often more than 90% of systems' updates in eight monorepos we analyze.

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Cited By

Skouti TSeiger RFurrer FStrahringer S(2024)RBPMN: the value of roles for business process modelingSoftware and Systems Modeling10.1007/s10270-024-01202-zOnline publication date: 22-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-024-01202-z
Spenger JCarbone PHaller PScholliers CSinger J(2022)Portals: An Extension of Dataflow Streaming for Stateful ServerlessProceedings of the 2022 ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on New Ideas, New Paradigms, and Reflections on Programming and Software10.1145/3563835.3567664(153-171)Online publication date: 29-Nov-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3563835.3567664
Sokolowski DRoychoudhury ACadar CKim M(2022)Infrastructure as code for dynamic deploymentsProceedings of the 30th ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering10.1145/3540250.3558912(1775-1779)Online publication date: 7-Nov-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3540250.3558912

Index Terms

Change is the only constant: dynamic updates for workflows
1. Applied computing
  1. Enterprise computing
    1. Business process management
      1. Business process modeling
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software post-development issues
      1. Software evolution

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cover image ACM Conferences

ICSE '22: Proceedings of the 44th International Conference on Software Engineering

May 2022

2508 pages

ISBN:9781450392211

DOI:10.1145/3510003

General Chair:
Matthew B Dwyer
University of Virginia
,
Program Chairs:
Daniela Damian
University of Victoria, Canada
,
Andreas Zeller
CISPA, Germany

Copyright © 2022 ACM.

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Published: 05 July 2022

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University of St. Gallen (IPF)
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ICSE '22: 44th International Conference on Software Engineering

May 21 - 29, 2022

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Cited By

Skouti TSeiger RFurrer FStrahringer S(2024)RBPMN: the value of roles for business process modelingSoftware and Systems Modeling10.1007/s10270-024-01202-zOnline publication date: 22-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-024-01202-z
Spenger JCarbone PHaller PScholliers CSinger J(2022)Portals: An Extension of Dataflow Streaming for Stateful ServerlessProceedings of the 2022 ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on New Ideas, New Paradigms, and Reflections on Programming and Software10.1145/3563835.3567664(153-171)Online publication date: 29-Nov-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3563835.3567664
Sokolowski DRoychoudhury ACadar CKim M(2022)Infrastructure as code for dynamic deploymentsProceedings of the 30th ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering10.1145/3540250.3558912(1775-1779)Online publication date: 7-Nov-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3540250.3558912

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