ONTOLOGY-BASED USER REQUIREMENT DECOMPOSITION FOR COMPONENT SELECTION FOR SERVICE PROVISION

• US 20140101634A1
• Filed: 12/11/2013
• Published: 04/10/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/10/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson
• Original Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson
• Inventors: Toeroe, Maria, Khendek, Ferhat, Abbasipour, Mahin, Sackmann, Margarete
• Granted Patent: US 9,164,734 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/101
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/10 Requirements analysis; Specification techniques

Abstract

Configuration requirements that specify the provision of services using a system-level description are automatically generated from user requirements. The user requirements are decomposed into one or more levels of decomposed functionalities using an ontology as input. The ontology stores known decompositions of functionalities and relations between the known decompositions. The lowest level of the decomposed functionalities is mapped into a set of components provided by vendors, and additional components on which the set of components depend are identified. Based on the set of components and the additional components, a required number of instances of service workload is calculated to generate the configuration requirements of the system that satisfy the user requirements.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for automatically generating configuration requirements from user requirements, wherein the configuration requirements specify provision of services using a system-level description, the method comprising the steps of:

decomposing, by a computer system, the user requirements into one or more levels of decomposed functionalities using an ontology as input, wherein the ontology stores known decompositions of functionalities and relations between the known decompositions;

mapping a lowest level of the decomposed functionalities into a set of components provided by vendors;

identifying additional components on which the set of components depend; and

calculating, based on the set of components and the additional components, a required number of instances of service workload to thereby generate the configuration requirements of the system that satisfy the user requirements.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the steps of mapping and identifying are performed using information from an extended Entity Types File (ETF) model, wherein the extended ETF model describes functional properties and non-functional properties of available components, and wherein each non-functional property describes a qualitative or quantitative characteristic of a corresponding functional property.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising the step of:

selecting the available components that are provided by the extended ETF model from the set of components and the additional components.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of:

automatically adding traceability links between the user requirements and each component in the set of components and the additional components, wherein the traceability links indicate the reason why said each component is rejected.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the ontology stores alternative decompositions of a functionality specified in the user requirements, wherein the method further comprising the step of selecting one of the alternative decompositions to best match the user requirements.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the steps of decomposing, mapping and identifying are performed via model transformations, which transform a user requirements model into a solution map model by incorporating an ontology model and an extended ETF model, wherein the user requirements model describes the user requirements, the ontology model describes the ontology, the extended ETF model describes available components, and the solution map model describes one or more potential solutions that map the user requirements into the available components.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the user requirements include one or more functional requirements, the model transformations comprising the steps of:

for each functional requirement in the user requirements that has a matching functionality in the ontology and is a non-leaf functionality in the ontology, adding all decompositions of the matching functionality into the solution map model under the functional requirement; and

recursively performing the step of adding for all functional requirements contained in the decompositions of the matching functionality.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

updating the ontology when one or more of the following occurs;

when a new component is added, when an existing component is removed, when software of existing components is updated, and when a user-specified composition of functionalities is successfully mapped to available components and generates the configuration requirements.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the ontology is specified according to an ontology meta-model that contains the functionalities, compositions of the functionalities, and interactions between different functionalities or with an environment in which the system operates.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the ontology stores alternative names of the functionalities, wherein the step of mapping further comprises the step of:

determining whether the mapping can be made by matching a name of a decomposed functionality with the alternative names stored in the ontology.

11. A system adapted to automatically generate configuration requirements from user requirements, wherein the configuration requirements specify provision of services using a system-level description, the system comprising:

a memory to store an ontology that further stores known decompositions of functionalities and relations between the known decompositions; and

one or more processors coupled to the memory, the one or more processors adapted to;

decompose the user requirements into one or more levels of decomposed functionalities using the ontology as input;

map a lowest level of the decomposed functionalities into a set of components provided by vendors;

identify additional components on which the set of components depend; and

calculate, based on the set of components and the additional components, a required number of instances of service workload to thereby generate the configuration requirements of the system that satisfy the user requirements.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the memory further stores an extended Entity Types File (ETF) model that describes functional properties and non-functional properties of available components, and wherein each non-functional property describes a qualitative or quantitative characteristic of a corresponding functional property, and wherein the one or more processors are further adapted to decompose the user requirements and map the decomposed functionalities using information from the extended ETF model.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the one or more processors are further adapted to:

select the available components that are provided by the extended ETF model from the set of components and the additional components.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the one or more processors are further adapted to:

add traceability links between the user requirements and each component in the set of components and the additional components, wherein the traceability links indicate the reason why said each component is rejected.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the ontology stores alternative decompositions of a functionality specified in the user requirements, wherein the one or more processors are further adapted to:

select one of the alternative decompositions to best match the user requirements.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein the one or more processors are adapted to decompose the user requirements, map the decomposed functionalities, identify the additional components via model transformations, wherein the model transformations transform a user requirements model into a solution map model by incorporating an ontology model and an extended ETF model, wherein the user requirements model describes the user requirements, the ontology model describes the ontology, the extended ETF model describes available components, and the solution map model describes one or more potential solutions that map the user requirements into the available components.

17. The system of claim 11, wherein the one or more processors are further adapted to:

update the ontology when one or more of the following occurs;

when a new component is added, when an existing component is removed, when software of existing components is updated, and when a user-specified composition of functionalities is successfully mapped to available components and generates the configuration requirements.

18. The system of claim 11, wherein the ontology is specified according to an ontology meta-model that contains the functionalities, compositions of the functionalities, and interactions between different functionalities or with an environment in which the system operates.

19. The system of claim 11 wherein the system is a server computer that comprises the one or more processors hosting virtual machines adapted to decompose the user requirements, map the decomposed functionalities, identify the additional components and calculate the required number of instances of service workload.

20. The system of claim 11 wherein the system is a server computer that operates in a cloud computing environment.