Transparent Componentisation: High-level (Re)configurable Programming for Evolving Distributed Systems

International audienceComponent frameworks and high-level distributed languages have been widely used to develop distributed systems, and provide complementary advantages: Whereas component frameworks foster composability, reusability, and (re)configurability; distributed languages focus on behaviour, simplicity and programmability. In this paper, we argue that both types of approach should be brought together to help develop complex adaptive systems, and we propose an approach to combines both technologies without compromising on any of their benefits. Our approach, termed Transparent Componentisation, automatically maps a high-level distributed specification onto a underlying component framework. It thus allows developers to focus on the programmatic description of a distributed system's behaviour, while retaining the benefits of a component architecture. As a proof of concept, we present WhispersKit, a programming environment for gossip-based distributed systems. Our evaluation shows that WhispersKit successfully retains the simplicity and understandability of high-level distributed language while providing efficient and transparent reconfigurability thanks to its component underpinnings