ALIVE is a research project funded by the European Commission in the context of the 7th Framework Program. ALIVE will develop new approaches to the engineering of distributed software systems based on the adaptation of coordination and organisation mechanisms often seen in human and other societies to service-oriented architectures. Such methods provide robust descriptions of distributed systems and make the development of complex software systems more accessible to non-specialists. 

New generations of networked applications based on the notion of software services that can be dynamically deployed, adjusted and composed will make it possible to create radically new types of software systems. In turn, this will require profound changes in the way in which software systems are designed, deployed and managed – exchanging existing, primarily top-down “design in isolation” engineering, to new approaches which are based on integrating new functionalities and behaviours into existing running systems of already active, distributed and interdependent processes. 

The ALIVE project is based around the idea that many of the strategies used today to organise the vastly complex interdependencies found in human social, economic behaviour will be essential to structuring future service based software systems. More specifically the project aims to combine cutting edge Coordination and Organisation mechanisms (providing flexible, high-level means to model the structure of inter-actions between services in the environment) and Model Driven Design (providing for automated transformations from models into multiple target platforms) to create a framework for software and services engineering for “live” open systems of active services.

The paradigm explored and elaborated by ALIVE aims to become a foundational contribution to the future evolution of SOA applications and for networked software applications, improving not only the competiveness in the European software industry but also creating new business opportunities by giving support to a wide variety of distributed business scenarios.

Contact: Thomas Quillinan