1.1 - Commentary

5.2 - On the Complexity of Change and Configuration Management

This paper describes the laboratory projects developed in a system and network administration course in an Applied Computer Science Master's program. When teaching such a course, one often faces th...

The quest by E&P companies and their service providers to gain a competitive edge through technology is driving a demand for higher standards in engineering software. Time to market is a critical success factor and is often viewed as contradictory to higher standards and other factors such as limited resources and budgets. An optimum approach to engineering software development can successfully satisfy both time-to-market and budgetary requirements while continually raising standards. This paper will discuss software practices that have proven effective during a full oilfield engineering software application development life cycle. Although the process activities – including specification, design, development, testing and deployment – were conventional, they were sequenced in a non-conventional manner and augmented with techniques such as risk management, use cases analysis, software modeling and configuration management. The paper presents a case study that illustrates how these practices were used in a sand control engineering software development project to successfully design and remodel an existing horizontal gravel pack spreadsheet application into a standalone desktop application. The new application provides a user-friendly interface to design and analyze gravel transport for solids of varying density in Newtonian fluids. A computation engine was developed as a plug-in component to perform various computations during the gravel packing process. An object-oriented architecture and framework were designed and built to avoid having to rebuild every new application from scratch. The authors will explain how the system was built and extended to incorporate new capabilities and how adopting optimized development practices has enabled reuse of software components in new applications and increased both the standards and cost-effectiveness of engineering software development.

It is an undeniable fact that software plays an important role in our lives. We use the software to play our music, to check our e-mail, or even to help us drive our car. Thus, the quality of software directly influences the quality of our lives. However, the traditional Software Engineering paradigm is not able to cope with the increasing demands in quantity and quality of produced software. Thus, a new paradigm of Model Driven Software Engineering (MDSE) is quickly gaining ground. MDSE promises to solve some of the problems of traditional Software Engineering (SE) by raising the level of abstraction. Thus, MDSE proposes the use of models and model transformations, instead of textual program files used in traditional SE, as means of producing software. The models are usually graph-based, and are built by using graphical notations – i.e. the models are represented diagrammatically. The advantages of using graphical models over text files are numerous, for example it is usually easier to deduce the relations between different model elements in their diagrammatic form, thus reducing the possibility of defects during the production of the software. Furthermore, formal model transformations can be used to produce different kinds of artifacts from models in all stages of software production. For example, artifacts that can be used as input for model checkers or simulation tools can be produced. This enables the checking or simulation of software products in the early phases of development, which further reduces the probability of defects in the final software product. However, methods and techniques to support MDSE are still not mature enough. In particular methods and techniques for model configuration management (MCM) are still in development, and no generic MCM system exists. In this thesis, I describe my research which was focused on developing methods and techniques to support generic model configuration management. In particular, during my research, I focused on developing methods and techniques for supporting model evolution and model co-evolution. Described methods and techniques are generic and are suitable for a state-based approach to model configuration management. In order to support the model evolution, I developed methods for the representation, calculation, and visualization of state-based model differences. Unlike in previously published research, where these three aspects of model differences are dealt with in separation, in my research all these three aspects are integrated. Thus, the result of model differences calculation algorithm is in the format which is described by my research on model differences representation. The same representation format of model differences is used as a basis of my approach to differences visualization. It is important to notice that the developed representation format for model differences is metamodel independent, and thus is generic, i.e., it can be used to represent differences between all graph-based models. Model co-evolution is a term that describes the problem of adapting models when their metamodels evolve. My solution to this problem has three steps. In the first step a special metamodel MMfMM is introduced. Unlike in traditional approaches, where metamodels are represented as instances of a metametamodel, in my approach the metamodels are represented by models which are instances of an MMfMM. In the second step, since metamodels are represented by models, previously defined methods and techniques for model evolution are reused to represent and calculate the metamodel differences. In the final step I define an algorithm that uses the calculated metamodel differences to adapt models conforming to the evolved metamodel. In order to validate my approaches to model evolution and model co-evolution, I have developed a tool for comparing models and visualizing resulting differences, and a tool for model co-evolution. Moreover, I have developed a method to compare tools for model comparison, and using this method I have conducted a series of experiments in which I compared the tool I developed to an industrial tool called EMFCompare. The results of these experiments are also presented in the thesis. Furthermore, in order to validate my tool and approach to model co-evolution, I have also specified and conducted several experiments. The results of these experiments are also presented in the thesis.

: Commercial computer-aided software engineering (CASE) tool technology has emerged as an important component of practical software development environments. Issues of CASE tool integration have received heightened attention in recent years, with various commercial products and technical approaches promising to make inroads into this difficult-problem. One aspect of CASE integration that has not been adequately addressed is the integration of CASE tools with configuration management (CM)-including both CM policies and systems. Organizations need to address how to make CASE tools from different vendors work effectively with an organization's CM policies and tools (in effect, integrate CASE with CM) within the context of the rapidly evolving state of commercial integration technology. This report describes key issues of the integration of CASE with CM from a third-party integrator's perspective, i.e., how to approach the integration of CASE and CM in such a way as to not require fundamental changes to the implementation of the tools or CM systems themselves.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore end-to-end Linux administration practices, focusing on installation, configuration, performance tuning, and production reliability in heterogeneous computing environments. With the increasing complexity of distributed systems, Linux administrators must manage diverse infrastructures efficiently while ensuring system stability and scalability. Design/methodology/approach: This research adopts a qualitative and analytical approach by reviewing existing literature, system administration frameworks, and real-world case studies. It evaluates Linux system lifecycle stages, including deployment, configuration management, performance optimization, and reliability engineering across heterogeneous platforms such as cloud, edge, and enterprise systems. Findings: The findings reveal that effective Linux administration requires integrated tools, automation, and proactive monitoring. Performance tuning and configuration optimization significantly enhance system efficiency, while reliability frameworks improve fault tolerance. Heterogeneous environments demand adaptive strategies due to varied hardware and software configurations. Practical implications: This study provides system administrators and IT professionals with structured methodologies to improve operational efficiency. It highlights best practices for automation, monitoring, and system tuning to achieve high availability and performance in production environments. Originality/value: This paper contributes a unified perspective on Linux administration by integrating installation, configuration, tuning, and reliability into a single framework tailored for heterogeneous systems, bridging gaps in prior fragmented studies.

This research attempts the implementation of an improved smartphone application for remote system administration. The work was motivated by the inability of network administrators to access their virtual servers from a remote location without worrying about the security implications, inaccurate and unreliable reports from a third party whenever he is out of town. The cloud server can be monitored and administered because various task such as creating users, manage users (grant access, block or delete users), restart server and shutdown server can be handled by the remote system administrator. This will involve of securing the system with a one-way hashing of encrypted password and a device ID for only whitelisted devices to be granted access. It will be observed that remote access for system administration can be implemented using a smartphone app based on a Point-to-Point Protocol and also reveal the advantages of PPP protocol, therefore making the enormous responsibilities of a remote system administrator much easier to accomplish.

There is no empirical evidence whatsoever to support most of the beliefs on which software construction is based. We do not yet know the adequacy, limits, qualities, costs and risks of the technologies used to develop software. Experimentation helps to check and convert beliefs and opinions into facts. This research is concerned with the replication area. Replication is a key component for gathering empirical evidence on software development that can be used in industry to build better software more efficiently. Replication has not been an easy thing to do in software engineering (SE) because the experimental paradigm applied to software development is still immature. Nowadays, a replication is executed mostly using a traditional replication package. But traditional replication packages do not appear, for some reason, to have been as effective as expected for transferring information among researchers in SE experimentation. The trouble spot appears to be the replication setup, caused by version management problems with materials, instruments, documents, etc. This has proved to be an obstacle to obtaining enough details about the experiment to be able to reproduce it as exactly as possible. We address the problem of information exchange among experimenters by developing a schema to characterize replications. We will adapt configuration management and product line ideas to support the experimentation process. This will enable researchers to make systematic decisions based on explicit knowledge rather than assumptions about replications. This research will output a replication support web environment. This environment will not only archive but also manage experimental materials flexibly enough to allow both similar and differentiated replications with massive experimental data storage. The platform should be accessible to several research groups working together on the same families of experiments.

Software engineering environments have a history of about two decades. Early environments provided support for small fragments of the software process (usually focusing on programming-in-the small). Then there was a trend towards support for more complete software processes (from early phases like requirements analysis and design down to testing and configuration management). Ten years ago the notion of process-centered software engineering environments initiated a new field in software engineering: software process research. The key idea is to use a model of a software process as input parameter for a software engineering environment. The environment is supposed to “behave” in accordance to the process model. Some aspects of this vision became true, others turned out to be of little practicability. In this article, we discuss the history of software engineering environments with a particular focus on process-centered software engineering environments (PCSEEs). We discuss the notion of distributed software processes (as one of the most substantial current trends in software process research) and we motivate the notion of a software process middleware which serves as basis of real-world software processes spread over various sites. In addition, we discuss some other trends in the software process research arena.

Software Configuration Management

The Need and Importance of Configuration Management in Software Development. A Short History of Configuration Management. Configuration Management Relationships. Configuration Management Defined. Configuration Management in the Software Engineering Environment. The Planning and Organizing of Configuration Management. The Configuration Management Activities: Identification. Performing the Change Control Activity. Performing the Status Accounting Activity. Performing Configuration Audits. Performing Interface Control. Performing Sub-Contractor Control. Establishing and Maintaining the Software Library. Software Tools. Configuration Management with Ada. Performing the Software Support Process. Training Guidelines. Notes. Appendices. Index.

This paper describes a mature Software Engineering Process that may be applied to capstone courses, student projects, and research projects in a university environment. This process, based in part on the Team Software Process of the Software Engineering Institute, features mature software engineering best practices, including extensive use of metrics to gain insight into process effectiveness and product quality. It is designed to be executed in a single 16-week semester, and it can easily be modified for a longer time frame. It is also designed for the academic culture: (1) it executes as a communicating sequential process running in parallel with and passing information to a series of in-class course presentations and (2) it takes into account that the students cannot devote full time to this one project. This process is independent of the computer language used and any project-specific technology (so it may be applied to software-only projects, robotics projects, smart device projects, embedded programming projects, and any other kind of software-intensive system project). This process is reusable without modification, or it may be tailored. To support tailoring, the process is described using meta data in a format that may be analyzed by automated tools to generate a hypertext document. This process has been tested by using it in a capstone course.

The article analyses the state of the most popular and least popular professions and specialties in Ukraine. It's found that there are no specialties in the field of land management among them. It is also noted that at the legislative level the specialties "Land Management and Cadastre" and "Evaluation of land and real estate" were replaced by the specialty "Geodesy and land management", which belongs to the field of knowledge "Architecture and construction" (technical sciences). It is substantiated that the profession of land manager should relate to the field of knowledge of "Social and behavioural sciences". It's based on the provisions of the Law "On Land Management" and the study of world experience of the essence of the concepts of land management and land management planning (both have technical, socio-economic, legal and environmental focus). It is proved that the profession of land manager needs to be reprofiled. In this regard, there is a need to identify new specialties and specializations and add them into the state classifier DK 003: 2010. It's important to expand the training of specialists within: 1) specialty 193 "Geodesy and land management" specializations "Land Management and Land Use Administration" and "Cadastral Registrar"; 2) specialty 101 "Ecology" specialization "Land management and ecologization of land use", 3) specialty 051 "Economics" specialization "Economics of land management and land use". It is proposed to add them to the classifier. Keywords. Profession "land manager", labour market, perspective specialties and specializations in land management, new qualifications. Formulation of the problem. The development of society at all times was associated with the arrangement of lands, which today remains the main means for the existence of mankind and a source of social wealth. The need to establish the limits disturb landowners from ancient times. This function is performed by land surveyors. When the first representatives of this profession appeared, it is certainly not known. But the land surveyor is now a profession demanded both in the village and in the city. In our country, the profession of land surveyor always respects honour because it is devoted to the invaluable treasures of Ukraine - land, which has always attached special significance. According to the research conducted in Ukraine, soon, the 10 most demanded professions include: programmers (C++, Java), food industry technologists, construction engineers, architects, designers of offices and interiors, personnel managers, recruiters, energy engineers, journalists, technologists of light industry products, financiers (specialization "banking") [1]. In addition, prospective include: hotel business managers, accountants, auditors, lawyers, marketers. According to the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, according to the results of the 2017 admission, the most popular specialties among the entrants for the Bachelor in Ukraine were Philology, Law, and Management. 85 thousand, 74 thousand and 59 thousand applications have been filed for the stated above specialties respectively. In addition, among the leaders are "Medicine", "Computer Science", "Tourism", "Secondary Education", "Psychology", "Economics". These specialties were desirable to enter by 40 to 46 thousand of entrants. The last step in the TOP-10 was "Software Engineering" with the result of 33 thousand applications (Fig. 1) [9]. Despite the stated above facts, it has been revealed that such specialties as "Law", "Management", "Tourism" and "Economics" remain among the most popular among entrants even though they are not in demand in the labour market. At the same time, the high levels in the ranking are occupied by important for the economy specialties, such as "Computer Science" and "Software Engineering". The least popular specialties are (fig. 2) "Theology" (185 applications excluding spiritual higher educational institutions) and "Hydropower" (193 applications for entry). However, specialties for the preparation of a specialist in land management are absent among the most and least popular. Therefore, with a caution we have to perceive the situation. The list of required occupations in the labour market is changing. Focus magazine has ranked the professions that will be promising in 5-10 years [10]. Before allocating the most promising specialties, the publication together with experts identified the areas of the economy that will actively develop in the near future. So, at first there was a list of 40 spheres of the economy, which, according to Focus, will successfully develop in the next 5-10 years. Experts evaluated the prospects for the development of these industries on a 10-point scale, giving each sector a mark from 1 to 10 points. At the same time, each expert could add to the list the industry that was not among the 40 listed, but whose potential he considers rather large. According to the obtained data, the rating of 15 most promising industries has been designed, and include: information technologies, telecommunications and communications, agriculture , pharmaceutical production and pharmacy business, banking, frying and processing industry, transport services, financial services, legal services, household services, metallurgy, alcohol production, energy, livestock , utilities. So, the 20 most promising professions of the next decade will be the following: the seller, the IT specialist, the automation engineer, the marketer, the municipal services engineer, the aeroengineer , the technologist in the production and processing of food products, the technologist of consumer services, logistics, the lawyer (economic and land law ), power engineer veterinarian, pharmacologist, financier, communication engineer, practical psychologist, geneticist, biochemist, robotic technician, nanoengineer. In addition, agrarian countries are actively developing organic and farm farming. This will require the involvement of a large number of employees who are able to work on the ground - and thus, forms a serious niche. In general, the labour market trends in the coming years can be reduced to nine main directions [5]: engineers, IT specialists, nanotechnology specialists, marketers, service providers, logistics, environmentalists, chemists, and physicians. The Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine dated December 30, 2015, No. 1187, approved new Licensing conditions for the conduct of educational activities [7] concerning the further conduct of educational and scientific work in educational institutions. By the order of the Ministry of Education and Science dated November 6, 2015, No. 1151 "On the peculiarities of the introduction of the list of branches of knowledge and specialties [6], which are the training of applicants for higher education, approved by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine from April 29, 2015, No. 266" [8] approved Table of correspondence List of directions for training of specialists in higher educational establishments for the educational-qualifying level of bachelor (List 1), List of specialties, which was carried out training of specialists in higher education institutions for educational and qualification levels of a specialist and a master's degree (List 2). In the stated above Resolution, it is defined that instead of the specialties "Land Management and Cadastre" and "Land and Real Estate Valuation" – the specialty "Geodesy and Land Management" is established. The latter belongs to the field of knowledge "Architecture and Construction", which belongs to the technical sciences. At the same time, the Law of Ukraine "On Land Management" stipulates that land management is a set of socio-economic and environmental measures aimed at regulating land relations and rational organization of the territory of administrative-territorial units, economic entities carried out under the influence of social and productive relations and development of productive forces [2]. The same law ( Article 1 ) stipulates that activities in the field of land management are the scientific, technical, production and management activities of state authorities, local governments, legal entities and individuals, which is carried out under land management. Land-use documentation ( land management documentation ) is the text and graphic materials approved in accordance with the established procedure, which regulate the use and protection of lands of state, communal and private property, as well as survey and land survey materials, author's supervision of project implementation, etc. Measures on land management – provided by documentation on land management on the rational use and protection of land, the formation and organization of the territory of the object of land management, taking into account their purpose, restrictions on the use and restrictions (encumbrances) on the rights of other persons (land servitudes), preservation and increase of fertility soils. This is evidence that the profession of land surveyor is more likely to belong to the field of knowledge of "Social and behavioural sciences" than to "Architecture and construction". Architecture (Greek αρχιτεκτονικη - construction) is both a science and the art of designing buildings, as well as a system of buildings and structures that form a spatial environment for the lives and activities of people in accordance with the laws of beauty. Land management, as stated in the Law of Ukraine "On Land Management" – a set of socio-economic and environmental measures aimed at regulating land relations and rational organization of the territory of administrative-territorial entities and economic entities on the ground. As the research of A.M. Tretiak and V.M. Tretiak shows, the concept and essence of land management has both a technical direction and socio-economic, legal and environmental. Land managers have worked and work in the structural subdivisions of the State Committee for Land Resources of Ukraine, the State Land Agency of Ukraine and the State Audit Office of Ukraine, state authorities and local self-government bodies, and ministries (where there are departments of land resources); in public and private design and valuation companies, real estate firms, agroholdings, agricultural enterprises; territorial communities, scientific institutions, institutions of legal direction. civic organizations. The land manager learns not only his professional knowledge, but also legal and natural sciences. For a profession it is necessary to have mathematical abilities, engineering approach, spatial imagination, ability to understand the legislation. The profession is extremely interesting and creative, which requires the ability to make informed decisions, communicate with people, requires care, clarity and responsibility. To become a successful specialist in this field, you need to be persistent, self-confident, active, have a well-developed intuition and logical thinking. According to the classification of professions, the professional activity of the land manager relates to professions such as "human-nature". To date, the land manager must have a higher education in the field of "Architecture and Construction" from the specialty "Geodesy and Land Management" , according to the educational qualification level: a junior specialist, a bachelor's or a master's degree. Currently, land managers use modern equipment in their work: electronic instruments; new technologies of geographic information systems. Significant problems arise when making managerial decisions due to the imperfection of the regulatory framework - when three different land managers can have three different views on the same issue. At the same time, for professionals it is extremely important to come to a joint decision. But how can the problems of legislation be explained to an ordinary peasant? It's a shame when you can not help a person in solving his question, and even more - when you do not know how to explain the impossibility of solving a particular problem. The disadvantage of the profession is also that there is little free time for personal life, family and wage mismatch in modern times. The advantages include: work is interesting, lots of communication, new knowledge in land law, and more. At the same time, we consider it necessary to stay on the proposals of A. Martyn outlined in the scientific paper "Directions of adaptation of the content of land management education to the needs of the national and world economy" [3], where he publishes "bad news" for land management education – whether we are ready for them? He states: "Most of our graduates will not develop landuse documentation at all; the number of jobs in the industry is quite limited; the overwhelming part of the "modern" Ukrainian land management is a terrible mix of fairly archaic rules, a crazy bureaucracy and meaningless rituals, in order to master the development of primitive land management documentation, it takes 2-3 weeks of practical training, but not 5 years at the university, and a significant part of cadastral registrar are lawyers. Some of these reservations agreeable. Therefore, his thoughts emphasize once again the need for serious changes in the training of land management specialists. Thus, all of the above stipulates the need for changes in the classification of occupations DK 003: 2010 and the definition of new specialties and specialization training of land management specialists. In our opinion, it is expedient to extend the training of specialists in land surveying in the following areas: 1) specialty 193 "Geodesy and land management" of the specializations "Land Management and Land Use Administration" and "Cadastral Registrar" ; 2) specialty 101 "Ecology" specialization "Land management and ecologization of land use" ; 3) specialty 051 "Economics" specialization "Economics of land management and land use" . At the same time, we consider it expedient to add the following qualifications to the classifier of professions DK 003: 2010: in section 8 "Main specialists – heads of scientific research units and subdivisions on scientific and technical preparation of production and other managers" – Chief land surveyor; in section 14 "Managers of enterprises, institutions, organizations and their subdivisions" – Manager of land management, Manager in the field of operations with land, Manager in the field of research in the land market; in section 25 "Agronomists, hydraulic engineering, forest managers and professionals of related professions" – Land manager; in section 33 "Assistant veterinarians, junior specialists in agronomy, forestry, water management and nature conservation" – Land Resources Inspector; in section 34 "Other technical specialists in the field of management" – State Inspector for the use and protection of land; in section 249 "Professionals not included in other classification groups". Land manager-ecologist, Land manager-designer. Conclusions. Summing up, we note that the assignment of the specialty "Geodesy and land management" to the field of knowledge "Architecture and Construction" (engineering science) does not comply with the provisions of the Law "On Land Management", the study of world experience of the essence of the concepts of land management, which determined that they are inherent in technical, as well as socio-economic, legal and environmental trends. In this connection it is proved that the profession of land manager belongs to the field of knowledge of "Social and behavioral sciences" . In view of this, the need for re-engineering the directions of land management training is urgent. Therefore, we must work ahead and make changes to the classification of professions DK 003: 2010 regarding the definition of new specialties and specialization training of specialists in land management. We consider it expedient to expand the training of specialists within: 1) specialty 193 "Geodesy and land management" of the specialties "Land Management and Land Use Administration" and "Cadastral Registrar" ; 2) specialty 101 "Ecology" specialization "Land management and ecologization of land use" ; 3) specialty 051 "Economics" specialization "Economics of land management and land use" (qualification "Land Management Manager"). It is proposed to make changes to the list of qualifications.

Software-defined network (SDN) platform is an emerging networking technology that offers efficient and seamless processing of traffic flows in the network. This is achieved by executing different network-control functions in a centralized controller. The execution of these network functions (NFs) depends on the implementation of heterogeneous and complex policies in an organization. The network administrators in the organization enforce a wide range of policies that are defined based on various factors. These factors range from different service providers’ requirements in terms of service level agreements (SLAs) to varying application context and network dynamics. The controller generates appropriate flow rules and pushes to the data plane (DP) switches based on these policies enforced by application layer servers. Managing these complex and heterogeneous network policies in SDN is important, but a challenging problem. In this chapter, we discuss various network policies and the policy management approaches that are widely used in the context of SDN. Then, we present an efficient policy management framework in SDN to ensure secure and efficient implementation of these heterogeneous policies, which in turn drive the generation of flow rules in forwarding switches.

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) has become a very competitive industry with many players in the market. The challenge all the BPO companies are facing is how to build and sustain business with the clients in such a competitive industry. The service providers can hardly compete on cost arbitration. On the one hand, they have to respond to their existing clients, who have tasted and achieved labour cost arbitration benefits and have started looking beyond this. On the other hand, they have to win new customers by providing value more than simply cost arbitration. With this business environment in mind, we have undertaken a study of service providers operating in India to explore what competences they have developed for successfully delivering the outcome. This research explores two competences of service providers: business process management competence relationship management competence. These two competences have the theoretical grounding in resource-based view and relationship theories. The study also identifies the fundamental competences required to strengthen the above two competences as human resource management competence, information technology management competence, and outsourcing management competence. It further explores whether the service provider can, with the help of these competences, deliver the intended business process outsourcing outcome. In order to understand the successful business process outsourcing outcome, classification of business processes as viewed by both the client and the service provider is considered desirable. From the clients' perspective, processes are classified as traditional, peripheral, critical, and strategic; as core, critical, and non-core non-critical; and as critical, key, and support. Similarly, from the service providers� perspective, the business processes are classified on complexity and criticality dimensions. This classification further helps in defining the successful BPO outcome as intended by the client. For example, when a non-core non-critical process is outsourced, the successful BPO outcome would be process efficiency in terms of cost reduction and improvement in the quality, and at the most process transformation through some innovation. Thus the study concludes that the business process management competence and relationship management competence will definitely help the service providers to deliver the BPO outcome. As an expansion of BPO literature, this research makes two significant contributions: It puts forth a conceptual model that focuses on the competences of the service provider required to deliver successful BPO outcome It identifies the critical competences and the foundation competences for doing the same.