ECM - Workplan

Workplan

    List of tasks

    List of work items

Tasks

T1: Specification

This task deals with the specification of the Extensible Container Model, including also the Extensible Container Architecture. Improvements or enhancements of the specification may arise due to the feedback of the implementation or of the end-users. It's also possible that the specification is modified due to various issues, such as inconsistency, unclear text, etc.

T1.1: Service Model

This subtask deals with the design of the service model. The service model defines how ECM services are designed and packaged as well as how they're integrated within the CCM specification.

The goal of this task is:

  • to define properly the model, e.g. in UML, MOF.
  • to support one or more formalisms to define services, e.g. XML, BNF.
  • to improve the model so that it encapsulates a broad variety of services.

T1.2: Assembly Model

This subtask deals with the design of the assembly model. The assembly model defines how a set of ECM services are combined to make up a container model. Therefore, it mainly deals with the ordering of the services' policies. Moreover, it also deals with the integration of the assemblies within the CCM specification.

The goal of this task is:

  • to define properly the model, e.g. in UML, MOF.
  • to support one or more formalisms to define assemblies, e.g. XML, BNF.
  • to improve the model so that it encapsulates a broad variety of container models.

T1.3: Extensible Container Architecture

This subtask deals with the design of the extensible container architecture. The rationale of this architecture is to enable the portable implementation of services. It deals with two subtasks: the Component-Oriented Portable Interceptors (COPIs) which define the various interception points (IPs) in this architecture; and the Service Management which define the internal representation of a service.

The goal of this task is:

  • to improve the COPIs so that more IPs are available. The decision to integrate a new IP should be mainly driven by "real" services requirements.
  • to improve the Service Management so that a service may use at best CORBA features.
  • to support various levels of extensibility so that costly features may be avoided in some cases, in other words enable trade-offs.
  • to support various time of extensibility so that a container infrastructure may be built statically before the application deployment or dynamically upon/after the deployment.

T1.4: Support for CCM profiles

This subtask deals with the design of an ECM which can be adapted to fit the requirements of the existing of future CCM profiles. At present, the ECM is designed for the full CORBA Components specification. However, a lightweight profile, called lightweight CCM (or LW-CCM) also exists. The design of a LW-ECM could therefore be undertaken.

The goal of this task is to define a modular design for the ECM so that instances of the ECM for various profiles (standard or not) may be "easily" achieved.

T2: Implementation

This task deals with the ECM-RI. Improvements or enhancements of the reference implementation may arise due to bug reports, end-users feedback (e.g. for the tools), new features in the specification, etc.

T2.1: ORB support

This subtask deals with the provision of ORB wrappers in order to ensure that the ORB-dependent code of the ECM-RI works on various ORB implementations. By "code", we encompass computational code (Java), scripts, XML descriptors, etc. By "implementation", we encompass both the provider and the version.

The goal of this task is to support any ORB implementation with complies to the following constraints:

  1. Must be implemented in a language also supported by the ECM-RI (in version 0.2.0, only Java is supported).
  2. Must be at least CORBA 2.4 compliant (due to the use of valuetypes and local interfaces in the CCM specification).

T2.2: CORBA runtime

This subtask deals with the provision of "pure" CORBA APIs, libraries and tools (i.e. a framework) to simplify the development of "pure" CORBA applications.

The goal of this task is:

  • to improve the APIs of the framework, so that the end-user (i.e. application developer) has a minimum work to do and does not have to pay for useless features.
  • to support more broader variety of configurations.
  • to support more configuration means, e.g. predefined configurations.

T2.3: CCM runtime

This subtask deals with the provision of a runtime for ECM-aware components.

The goal of this task is:

  • to improve the ECM/CCM local interfaces, so that the end-user (i.e. generation tool) has a minimum work to do and does not have to pay for useless features.
  • to support a broader variety of configurations.
  • to support more configuration means, e.g. predefined configurations.
  • to support various implementations of the COPIs.

T2.4: Generation tool

This subtask deals with the provision of a tool which generates the component's code. Note that this code is generated on top of the ECM/CCM local interfaces of the container.

The goal of this task is to provide such a tool.

T2.5: Services

This subtask deals with the provision of ECM services either as illustration of the ECM itself or as "real life" services provided by default with the ECM.

The goal of this task is:

  • provide services which illustrate all aspects of the ECM.
  • provide real life services to demonstrate the ECM's usefulness (and to improve the model also).

T2.6: Demonstrations

This subtask deals with the provision of a set of demonstrations which illustrates the various aspects of the ECM-RI.

The goal of this task is to provide uptodate demonstrations, i.e. demonstrations which covers the latest implemented features.

T2.7: Language support

This subtask deals with the implementation of the ECM-RI in various languages. At present, the ECM-RI is only implemented in Java, but a C++ version would also be relevant and usefull.

The goal of this task is to provide implementations for any computational language for which the ORB support is / can be implemented (see T2.1).

T3: Documentation

This task deals with two kind of documentation: the end-user documentation, such as tutorials, and the internal documentation.

NOTE: to be refined

T4: Test and Integration

This task mainly deals with the provision of a test suite (or demonstrations) as well as the integration of the ECM with other platform (such as OpenCCM.

NOTE: to be refined

Work Items

ECMRI 0.3.0 Work Items

The following list summarizes the most important (or relevant) work items which are targeted for the ECM-RI 0.3.0 release.

Work itemPriorityMain TaskMilestoneComment
Release of ECM-RI 0.3.01T2, T3, T4TBD

WI1: Release of ECM-RI 0.3.0

This is the forthcoming release of the ECM-RI.

ECM 2.0 Work Items

The following list summarizes the most important (or relevant) work items which are targeted for the ECM 2.0 specification release.

Work itemPriorityMain TaskMilestoneComment
Release of ECM 2.01T1TBD
Specification of assembly model1T1.2TBD

WI1: Release of ECM 2.0

This is the forthcoming release of the ECM specification.

WI2: Specification of assembly model

One of the most important feature which is missing in the ECM 0.1 specification is the assembly model for services. Without such a model, it's not possible to properly define container models (see task T1.2).

Below is the list of subitems:

  1. Define an archive format for assemblies (may be inspired from CCM's one).
  2. Define an XML DTD to describe assemblies.
  3. Update ECM CCD; i.e. replace the <usedservices> XML element by something like a <usedassembly> XML element (to be defined in the assembly DTD).
  4. Update the ExtendedComponentInstallation interface so that assemblies may be installed and the information of the descriptors may be retrieved.
  5. Update the COPIs specification so that the external ordering is taken into account.
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