Software Architecture Evolution through Dynamic AOP

Modern computing and network environments demand a high degree of adaptability from applications. At run time, an application may have to face many changes: in conguration, in protocols used, in terms of the available resources, etc. Many such changes can only be adequately addressed through dynamic evolution of the software architecture of the application. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to dynamically evolve a software architecture based on run-time aspect oriented programming. In our framework, a system designer/administrator can control the architecture of an application by dynamically inserting and removing code extensions. It is even possible to replace a signicant part of the underlying middleware infrastructure without stopping the application. The novelty of this work is that it allows for a much more flexible development strategy as it delegates issues like middleware choice and adherence to an architectural specication to a framework enhanced by dynamic code extensions