Application software

About: Application software is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 12185 publications have been published within this topic receiving 219822 citations. The topic is also known as: software application & application software.

Current practice and a direction forward in checkpoint/restart implementations for fault tolerance

Abstract: Checkpoint/restart is a general idea for which particular implementations enable various functionalities in computer systems, including process migration, gang scheduling, hibernation, and fault tolerance. For fault tolerance, in current practice, implementations can be at user-level or system-level. User-level implementations are relatively easy to implement and portable, but suffer from a lack of transparency, flexibility, and efficiency, and in particular are unsuitable for the autonomic (self-managing) computing systems envisioned as the next revolutionary development in system management. In contrast, a system-level implementation can exhibit all of these desirable features, at the cost of a more sophisticated implementation, and is seen as an essential mechanism for the next generation of fault tolerant - and ultimately autonomic - large-scale computing systems. Linux is becoming the operating system of choice for the largest-scale machines, but development of system-level checkpoint/restart mechanisms for Linux is still in its infancy, with all extant implementations exhibiting serious deficiencies for achieving transparent fault tolerance. This paper provides a survey of extant implementations in a natural taxonomy, highlighting their strengths and inherent weaknesses.

System for containerization of application sets

Abstract: A system is disclosed having servers with operating systems that may differ, operating in disparate computing environments, wherein each server includes a processor and an operating system including a kernel a set of associated local system files compatible with the processor. This invention discloses a method of providing at least some of the servers in the system with secure, executable, applications related to a service, wherein the applications may be executed in a secure environment, wherein the applications each include an object executable by at least some of the different operating systems for performing a task related to the service. The method of this invention requires storing in memory accessible to at least some of the servers a plurality of secure containers of application software. Each container includes one or more of the executable applications and a set of associated system files required to execute the one or more applications, for use with a local kernel residing permanently on one of the servers. The set of associated system files are compatible with a local kernel of at least some of the plurality of different operating systems. The containers of application software exclude a kernel; and some or all of the associated system files within a container stored in memory are utilized in place of the associated local system files resident on the server.

Web application slicing

Abstract: Program slicing revealed a useful way to limit the search of software defects during debugging and to better understand the decomposition of the application into computations. We propose to extend the extraction of slices to Web applications, in order to produce a reduced Web application which behaves as the original one with respect to some criterion, i.e., some displayed information of interest. After presenting the theoretical implications of applying slicing to Web applications, we demonstrate its usefulness with reference to an example, derived from a survey of a set of travel agency sites. Web application slicing helps to disclose relevant information and understand the internal system structure.

Software Aging and Rejuvenation in a SOAP-based Server

Abstract: Web-services and service-oriented architectures are gaining momentum in the area of distributed systems and Internet applications. However, as we increase the abstraction level of the applications we are also increasing the complexity of the underlying middleware. In this paper, we present a dependability benchmarking study to evaluate and compare the robustness of some of the most popular SOAP-RPC implementations that are intensively used in the industry. The study was focused on Apache Axis where we have observed a high susceptibility of software aging. Building on these results we propose a new SLA-oriented software rejuvenation technique that proved to be a simple way to increase the dependability of the SOAP-server, the degree of self-healing and to maintain a sustained level of performance in the applications

The importance of branching models in SCM

Abstract: To improve software quality, you must first understand your software. If you do not understand your code base, your odds of updating it without breaking something are poor. Often, a fundamental misunderstanding of software configuration management (SCM) as it applies to real-world application development is at fault. Branching is integral to version management, software build correctness, and release management. Good decisions about when and why to branch can make it much easier for developers and release engineers to coordinate software product changes. The right branching strategy makes it easier to deliver the right code, re-create past releases, and-if necessary roll back to a previous release. The authors consider how adopting the right SCM branching model facilitates rapid development, increases overall product quality and process efficiency, reduces the incidence of software failures, and improves organizational performance.