Embedded System Design based on Webservices

Achim Rettberg
University Paderborn / C-LAB, 33095 Paderborn, Germany
Tel: +49 5251 606110, Fax: +49 5251 606065
Email: [email protected]

and

Wolfgang Thronicke
Siemens SBS / C-LAB, 33095 Paderborn, Germany
Tel: +49 5251 606174, Fax: +49 5251 606065
Email: [email protected]

Abstract feasible and several methodologies have proven their

value in this field, like UML-based techniques [12], [13].
The structure of Internet applications and However, the notation had to be augmented to cope with
scenarios is changing rapidly today. This offers describing distributed systems effectively. Using
new potential for established technologies and distributed objects complex networked applications with
methods to expand their area of application. New high interoperability could be specified. On the one side,
technologies encourage new methodologies to definition and implementation on object level is still the
design processes and business-to-business adequate design style for tightly coupled components, on
applications. The application of such new the other side when targeting Internet scenarios the
advancements should be extended into the concept of interacting services is now the state-of-the-art
domain of the electronic design automation specification method. This service-based programming
paradigm is backed by new Internet protocols and
(EDA) industry. In this paper we present an
languages like SOAP [14] and WSDL [15] which serve
approach to use webservices in the field of exactly the purpose of defining and describing services
embedded system design. and their intercommunications. New applications or
services can rely on services from other service-providers.
1 Introduction Since the client of a service is not defined at the time the
service is provided the deployment and publication are a
The structure of Internet applications is changing most important part during its life cycle. With UDDI [16]
rapidly. New information technologies and standards are a “dictionary” with a standardized access mechanism has
emerging and - together with new infrastructures (high been defined to alleviate this problem.
speed internet, wireless applications, UMTS) - are This progress affects the traditional tool-centered
reshaping design processes and business-to-business engineering domains as well, since issues like time-to-
transactions. market and distributed development and design are
In addition to Internet technology that has been a true common factors in the affected processes. Moreover the
enabler for distributed technologies and applications the sophistication of tools gains a new level as the design
focus of development in this area is shifting towards technology for new products evolves rapidly. So they are
service-oriented structures. This falls into line with the valuable assets for a company forming an important part
evolution of programming paradigms: Object-orientation of their intellectual property (IP).
denotes the view of a program during design and Using the service-centered approach such companies
execution as a collection of objects that send messages to have the chance to offer using their knowledge without
each other invoking certain qualified operations. having to externalize programs or algorithms. For the user
Deliberate design of software-systems seemed to become of such services one important question is how to

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 integrate such a service into their work environment. address of the service and can locally integrate the web-
Usually integration focuses on the principle of coupling service interface. Using this two-step approach of
existing applications or components tightly together to dynamically integration has different advantages:
ensure smooth and reliable operation. The resulting (and
available) integration environments therefore use • The provider can move the implementation of the
proprietary integration mechanisms on top of existing webservice to another server, which will be
base-technologies like CORBA [18], JAVA [19], and reflected in the directory. So the client process
JAVABEANS [20] or similar middleware components. In automatically adjusts to the new location
fact, CORBA-Services for instance constitute (address).
conceptually the same idea as webservices with WSDL: • For reliable services the provider can supply
To enable their use through a common interface by different instances of the webservice at different
different applications. The important difference of this sites, so that the others will compensate the failure
approach is that webservices are build on top of a of one server.
foundation that is centered on the Internet platform. • Different providers may offer the same service at
Which means the common denominator for running such different costs. So the client can select the most
services is standard webserver technology, TCP/IP cost-effective one dynamically.
networks and the HTTP protocol accompanied by the
flexible XML metaformat. Thus integration technology There are certain advantages that apply during the
will change and hopefully become as transparent as design phase of an application: The designer of a new
accessing other content in the Internet [17]. The usage of client process can search for needed services conveniently
this technology for embedded system design is of high in the directory and create highly distributed scenarios
interest, because it offers on one side more freedom for without actually configuring network structures or
the user of such systems and on the other side for the tool determining concrete hosts. Since WSDL is standardized,
vendor new business concepts or licensing models. effective user-friendly integration assistants will simplify
This paper is organized as follows. First we describe the whole integration process on the implementation side
the web-based integration scenario. Than, we present a so that more weight can be laid on conceptual issues. The
collaborative design environment for embedded system XML-based webservice technology is well supported
design, called PARADISE [2]. After that, we describe the from major IT-providers with sets of tools, so it can be
combination of the web-based integration scenario with assumed that this standard will have a lasting life cycle in
the existing PARADISE environment. We conclude with the fast changing world of applications, and technology
a discussion of the presented approach. trends.

2 The web-based Integration Scenario

Register webservice
Tool
For integration aspects using webservices can provide Webservice
1
a suitable solution to overcome certain critical issues in Directory
exploiting remote facilities: Description and protocols.
With XML-based formats like WSDL and SOAP, that Accessing webservice
additionally defines the messages used to access and Query webservice 2 3 using SOAP protocol
control remote services, a common infrastructure is
provided.
Popular pre-web integration methodologies have been
focusing on combining tools and software components by
using enabling technologies. These have supplied the
inter-tool “glue” which allowed assembling a new
solution from these parts and foster reuse in different
Workprocess using a webservice
scenarios. The new scenario using a web-service is shown
in Figure 1: The main difference in the integration method Tool Integrated tool Webservice
enabler
is that there is not tight coupling of the integrated service
into the client’s process. The integration efforts are
usually taken at the site of the provider of the webservice.
The provider registers his service at a webservice
directory where it can be queried using a standardized Figure 1. Integrating a webservice
format. As a result the client retrieves the description and

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 or remote locations can incorporate existing design data in
However, the ordinary integration technologies still the design flow. Therefore, system designs can then be
have their merits. Because webservices represent a weak carried out with the aid of the bottom-up or top-down
coupling and require more dynamic processing for the method. Besides the integration of tools in a workflow,
protocols a certain overhead is generated which slows ASTAI(R) supports the distribution and generation of a
down the interaction. Especially “popular” webservices design data. Also the update of design data is well
may have long latencies that reflect the same behavior as supported. Tools within a workflow for which input data
visiting a heavy-loaded webservers. In the intranet the does not exists or is invalid yet are automatically blocked
common integration techniques are to be preferred until the data is available and valid. Newly generated data
because the location of tools and applications is known is initially classified as local data until developers release
and under direct administration. Additionally this it explicitly. Releasing the data causes all levels within the
technique of integration allows an efficient adaption to hierarchical design flow to be notified without delay.
the clients requirements, whereas changing a webservice Developers on these other levels can then accept or reject
depends on the cooperation of the service provider. this data. This protocol is managed by ASTAI(R) by using
Usually there are different clients with contradicting the Internet. Therefore, the location at which a design
requirements which are not easy to meet by the provider. data, tool or design flow is stored or installed is irrelevant.
A complete overview of the installed tools within
3 The PARADISE Approach PARADISE can be found in [2], [5] and [6].
To show the practicability of the PARADISE design
The PARADISE design environment is implemented environment two design scenarios are shortly described.
with the ASTAI(R) tool [11] that has been developed at The first example is the design of a traffic light controller
C-LAB [2], [3], [4]. This design environment focuses on and the second one is the extension of mobile robot.
the design of embedded hardware/software systems. The The traffic light controller is specified on a very high
design complexity of embedded systems combined with a level of abstraction using Predicate/Transition-Nets (Pr/T-
very tight time-to-market window has revolutionized Nets). This formalism is supported within the PARADISE
today’s embedded system design process. Several design environment by the ‘System Engineering and
interacting design dimensions to implement parallelism, Animation’ tool SEA. The tool provides a homogeneous
distribution over different locations, hard real-time model based on Pr/T-Nets. To analyze the worst-case
requirements [1] and the collaboration have to be execution time (WCET) of a single task, we use the C-
addressed by a design environment. Furthermore the LAB Hard Real-Time System (CHaRy) [1]. This is a
usage of IP components is important for embedded system software synthesis system for distributed (parallel)
designs [10]. periodic hard real-time applications. The application is
Consequently, the modern, structured design process described on a high level (e.g. using SEA), whereas the
has to deal with heterogeneous requirements and implementation is left to CHaRy. CHaRy analyzed the
restrictions. Therefore, the collaborative work is very WCET for each task of the task-graph. The annotated
important for efficient embedded system design. That task-graph is read into the tool SSEA which was
mean, hardware and software designers and system developed jointly at the ETH Zurich and the University of
architects must synchronize their work progress to Paderborn for the purpose of solving the generalized
optimize and debug a system in joint effort. The hardware/software-partitioning problem including the
PARADISE environment distinguishes between these design space exploration of multi-objective cost functions,
different design domains (see Figure 2). Each design hence for the system-level synthesis of embedded
domain reflects a core competency in the design of an systems. For a detailed description of the traffic light
embedded system. Each design domain is structured by controller design see [3]. This design scenario shows the
levels and views. For example the HW-Synthesis design modeling of an embedded system on a high-abstraction
domain corresponds to the structuring of Gajski Y-Chart level by using PrT/Nets and how to analyze the model
[7], [8]. PARADISE integrates this databased design with the respect of mapping model tasks to functional
methodology with a variety of tools that are suitable for units of a given target architecture.
certain design steps. For the first time, distribution of The second design scenario is the extension of a small
tools, data and developers over different network domains mobile robot called Pathfinder. This mobile robot is an
is possible. This means that any developer at any location experimental platform and is as simple as possible in
can launch a tool from another location. The ASTAI(R) order to keep the focus on the methodological issues and
software ensures consistency and the protection of private not on the vehicle itself. The Pathfinder until now is fully
data. All design steps can be monitored and controlled by operational, see [21]. The software has been manually
means of a design flow. Developers with access to local coded and implemented on the Pathfinder. The

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 architecture is component aware, i.e. is prepared to approaches like webservices. Therefore, the extension of
integrate new modules that add functionality. For PARADISE with webservices is a solution to integrate
demonstration of our IP-based design approach we extend this new trend in the electronic system design area.
our example in order to establish an advanced interaction Clearly, it is not necessary to use webservices for in-house
facility of the vehicle with it’s environment, especially realization of a design environment, because ASTAIR(R)
persons being around there. Thus we would like to offers all necessary services for integration and workflow
communicate with people around the Pathfinder, i.e. the implementation for in-house solutions. Additionally
robot is equipped with a microphone and speakers. Any ASTAI(R) takes full advantage of the Intranet
solution that will fit the needs has to be aware of the infrastructure leading to a very efficient integration of
existing system architecture and it’s real-time tools. Webservices are only necessary for collaborative
characteristics. The time-critical parts of this new work between different departments on different
functionality are speech compression and decompression locations.
tasks. Therefore, the tools of the PARADISE design In our approach we interpreted a tool as a webservice.
environment are used to develop or integrate existing Consequently in the area of embedded system design,
solutions in the Pathfinder architecture. For the extension especially for our PARADISE scenario, each tool from an
of the architecture we use the modeling tool SEA. CHaRy EDA vendor could be registered in the webservice
analyzed the WCET for the different software tasks. directory (see Figure 1). Through this directory any client
Within PARADISE we use a generalized approach to can transparently select and access the tools required for a
HW/SW-partitioning problem which has been certain design-task. Furthermore, the design or workflows
implemented by the previously mentioned tool SSEA. The can also be interpreted as webservices and be registered in
tool TEReCS decides which of the developed or existing the webservice directory. This mechanism has the
solutions really can be combined, i.e. whether their following advantages for the user of such a system:
interfaces are compatible. For a detailed description of the
scenario see [10]. • Webservices are in fact a standardized integration
At this time four partners participate in the approach. They are not limited to one
PARADISE design environment. These are namely the C- environment, but can be integrated into every
LAB, the University of Paderborn with two different software-system that is webservice-aware.
departments and the University of California at Irvine. • Webservices can be built from other webservices.
The main server is located in C-LAB. All other partners This means the integration of tools as webservices
run clients and small servers to distribute the appropriated into complex design flows can be republished as a
tool in the environment over the Internet. new high-level webservice. A client could easily
access a complete design methodology through
SW-Synthesis this approach.
Specification Operating
-System • The directory can act like a marketplace enabling
a client to choose from different solutions the one
most suitable for his design problems.
Modelling HW-
Synthesis Consequently, the combination of PARADISE by the
webservice scenario, described in section 2 offers a really
new design method for embedded systems.
Currently ASTAI(R) is expanded by a webservice
integration module. This module will provide the
Verification Rapid following functionality:
Prototyping
Analysis
• Any “regular” tool can be encapsulated by the
Figure 2. PARADISE design domains server-side module and thus becomes accessible
as a webservice. Therefore a standard set of tool-
control functions is provided by the tool-
4 System Design with Webservices webservice module. Using this part conceptually
any web service-aware program or tool could use
Surely, the presented realization of the PARADISE the integrated tool. On the tool site, there is not
design environment is a good structuring of today’s necessary to install any ASTAI(R) specific
embedded system design but it lacks by using new software components.

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Design Space Exploration on System Level for Embedded

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