Examensarbete
 
Titel: A software architecture platform for the domain of small mobile units like hand-held computers and phones
Poäng: 20
Företag: Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, Ronneby
Handledare företag: Peter Molin, peter.molin@ecs.ericsson.se
Handledare högskolan: Dr Jan Bosch, jan.bosch@ide.hk-r.se
   
Introduction (excerpt from thesis)

The young domain of small mobile units like hand-held computers and phones is growing at a fast rate and with it a wide range of applications. Today's mobile units differ from larger computers in restriction of computational power, memory capabilities and network bandwidth. Although limited in their capabilities they are powerful enough to create a shift in focus from hardware to software. The domain will need a wide range of applications suiting the needs of the users to become widely used.

Shortened time-to-market is a key factor today, while still enforcing quality. It is possible but difficult to achieve this without component-based domain platforms that encapsulates domain knowledge and makes reuse of code and design possible. The main thesis question to be answered is how a platform for the domain looks like. The answer will be a platform that includes an approach on how to construct portable, reusable components, how to interconnect these in a standardized way, and a set of components designed is this way.

Work outline

We divided the thesis into four natural steps where each step has a result that is used as input into the next step. In this section we will describe the steps involved.

In step one we set the stage by giving a context for the platform and component-based design. The main result from this stage is an understanding of the problems involved relating to components, the requirements we set for our platform, and a description and bounding of the domain we aim the thesis and platform for.

Step two is used to catalyze the understanding of problems related to component-based design. On-hand experience is gained by using two different domain samples on which we force a component-based design. The main result from this stage is a component-based design for a few sample applications, a conclusion that Java and Java Beans is the most viable technology for the future, and a realization that intelligent component-design is not enough. Still, a standardized way of interconnecting components is necessary to achieve the platform goals of reusability. This result together with knowledge from domain experts about the components needed to cover some of the basic needs for the domain today is used as input to step three, the platform.

The platform contains a set of components and how they interact, a solution to how the problems of portability are solved, and a general way of interconnecting components. We describe how Java can be used as the solution to portability and how the technology called the InfoBus are the solution to interconnecting independent reusable components. The InfoBus technology is described in detail and we present the design of components relating to the domain, which are designed in the item-focused InfoBus way.

In the last step we evaluate how well the platform adhere to the requirements that we have set up.

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