Configuration and dynamic reconfiguration of component-based applications with Microsoft .NET

Dynamic reconfiguration provides of powerful mechanism to adapt component-based distributed applications to changing environmental conditions. We have designed and implemented a framework for dynamic component reconfiguration on the basis of the Microsoft .NET environment. Within this paper we present an experimental evaluation of our infrastructure for dynamic reconfiguration of component-based applications. Our framework supports the description of application configurations and profiles and allows for selection of a particular configuration and object/component instantiation based on measured environmental conditions. In response to changes in the environment, our framework will dynamically load new configurations, thus implementing dynamic reconfiguration of an application. Configuration code for components and applications has to interact with many functional modules and therefore is often scattered around the whole application. We use aspect-oriented programming techniques to handle configuration aspects separately from functional code. The timing behavior of dynamic reconfiguration depends heavily on properties of the underlying programming environment and the operating system. We have studied to which extend and with which performance impact the Microsoft .NET Platform/sup 1/ supports dynamic reconfiguration. The paper thoroughly discusses our experimental results.