Exploring the Role of Software Architecture in Dynamic and Fault Tolerant Pervasive Systems

Pervasive systems are rapidly growing in size, complexity, distribution, and heterogeneity. As a result, the traditional practice of developing one-off embedded applications that are often rigid and unmanageable is no longer acceptable. This is particularly evident in a growing class of mobile and dynamic pervasive systems that are highly unpredictable, and thus require flexible and adaptable software support. At the same time, many of these applications are mission critical and have stringent fault tolerance requirements. In this paper, we argue that an effective approach to developing software systems in this domain is to employ the principles of software architecture. We discuss the design and implementation of facilities we have provided in a tool-suite targeted for architecture-based development of fault tolerant pervasive systems.