RELEASE-NOTES

Component Synthesis using Model-Integrated Computing (CoSMIC)

This is a release version 0.8.5 of Component Synthesis using Model-Integrated
Computing (CoSMIC) suite of tools. Currently CoSMIC tool suite consists of
    o   Platform-Independent Component Modeling Language (PICML)
    o   Component QoS Modeling Language (CQML)
    o   DDS QoS Modeling Language (DQML)

PICML is a Model-Integrated Computing (MIC) based paradigm for modeling CORBA
Component Model (CCM) based applications, which use the latest Deployment and
Configuration Specification (D&C), for configuration and deployment. CQML
allows PICML-based models to capture the higher level QoS design intent and
helps generate QoS configuration metadata from annotated models. DQML allows
modeling of large number QoS knobs provided by DDS.

This document lists the new features that are introduced in the latest
version.

Release CoSMIC-0.8.5
===================================================================

. Fixed bug where the IDL generator would fail if an event, or referenced data
  type was at the same level as the object reference it.

Release CoSMIC-0.8.4
===================================================================

. Implemented support for template module alias.

. Implemented guard that prevent connections between a connector
  and a port if there is no valid connection possible.

. If there are no deployment plans in the model, then a
  warning message is displayed.

. Added a tag at the bottom of idl_to_picml's usage screen that
  states when the executable was created.

. Updated AMI4CCM handler to latest version of AMI4CCM standard.

. Added a --debug option to idl_to_picml, which can be used to
  print useful debugging information.

. Added a checkbox to the new component dialog that allows the user
  to determine if the servant's location is based on the fully
  qualified path of the compnent, or the component's filename.

. Implemented a new event handler that will initialize the predefined
  types folder with all the allowable predefined types.

. Bug fix where adding a template model instance to a model
  when there was more than one template model caused GME to
  crash.

. Bug fix where a complex property's data values were not populated
  if an aggregate was referenced that contained a key.

. Bug fix where generated node map had a blank line at the end
  of the file. Apparently, the execution manager does not like
  blank lines.

. Bug fix in idl_to_picml where the import would fail if there were
  extraneous comments in the code. This was resolved by adding rules
  for parsing both C and C++ comments.

Release CoSMIC-0.8.3
===================================================================

. Bug fix where idl_to_picml failed to import the IDL3_Plus
  test in CIAO. This was a result of the PICML metamodel not
  properly supporting some of IDL3+ semantics.

. Bug fix where the IDL generator creates bad declaration ordering
  with ComponentFactory element.

. Bug fix where the CBML model intelligence was not executing
  because its event mask was not set propertly.

. Bug fix where it was impossible to delete a ComponentInstance
  element if it contained a MirrorPortInstance or ExtendedPortInstance
  element.

. Bug fix where large number of circular dependencies caused crash
  in IDL generator interpreter.

. Bug fix where the private/public flags were missing from
  an event tag.

. Bug fix where the 'supports' statement on a component was not
  generated correctly.

Release CoSMIC-0.8.2
===================================================================

. Re-designed how actions are modeled in CBML and WML. Now,
  actions are called operations in WML. Likewise, they now can
  contain in, out, and inout parmeters and return values. In CBML,
  the worker actions are no longer instances of actions. Instead,
  they reference the corresponding action in the target worker.

. Updated the naming convention for the location of connector
  artifacts. For now, the location of the connector artifacts
  is defined by the fully qualified name of the hosting template
  package.

. Enhanced IDL generator to be more efficient when generating
  forward declarations and added the ability to detect and resolve
  circular dependencies.

. Added support for generating default implementation for types
  that support implementations when the .xme model is being
  imported.

. Removed the --overwrite option in idl_to_picml.

. In idl_to_picml Re-added the -i option and updated its semantics
  such that it is used to specify an initial (import) model to use
  when importing IDL, but the final model is still saved to the one
  specified using the -x option.

. Improved support to generating locality manager information into
  a deployment plan. The information for the locality manager, if
  enabled, is derived from the deployment plan model. Each collocation
  group maps to a locality manager instance. Likewise, the name of
  the collocation group maps to the ProcessName configuration property
  on the locality manager instance.

. When adding a component or connector instance to a model, the PICML
  model intelligence will either (1) automatically select the
  implementation or (2) present a dialog of valid implementations to
  select. It will then automatically create the contained type
  element.

. The location of the generated deployment descriptors is saved
  and restored during future exeuctions of the deployment plan
  generator.

. When creating a template module instance, its elements
  are expanded to contain concrete types. This makes it easier
  to reference elements in a template module instance.

Release CoSMIC-0.8.1
===================================================================

. Delegation of extended/mirror ports. An extended/mirror
  port can be delegated to 0..1 delegation ports. Supporting
  delegation to multiple delegation ports will results in
  deployments that are not able to deploy via DAnCE.

. Support for generating valid descriptor information for
  ami4ccm connectors. The ami4ccm support works similar to
  the dds4ccm support. To generate the necessary pragma
  statements in IDL for ami4ccm, you must enable the async
  attribute on both the Object and RequiredRequestPort.

. First version of supporting process/thread specification for
  plan locality managers. Right now, PICML treats locality manager
  as regular components. This means you set the process/thread
  affinity using properties attached to a locality manager
  instance. The property names are as follows:

  - LocalityManager.ProcessName (String)
  - LocalityArguments (String)

  As more is learned about locality managers, the design and
  implementation of locality managers will be improved.

. First version of supporting specification of CPU or CPU core
  affinity for each process/thread. The realization of this is
  similar to the process/thread specification above. The name
  of the property for specifying affinity is:

  - edu.vanderbilt.dre.DAnCE.LocalityManager.CPUAffinity

. Complete support for managing ComplexType elements via the
  Property Manager, and expose the Property Manager icon on
  the toolbar. In particular, you can move elements in a array
  up/down and delete them. In you must close the dialog and
  re-open it after you add a new element to an array consisting
  of complex types to view the members of the newly added complex
  type.

. Generation of a nodemap.dat file in conjunction with the
  auto-generated .cdd file. The name of the auto-generated file
  will be the same as the deployment plan. To include an entry
  in a .nodemap, attach a Property element of type String to the
  target NodeReference element, and set its name to StringIOR.
  The value of the Property element is a valid string IOR (i.e.,
  corbaname:, corbaloc:, IOR:).

. When making a connection between a Facet/Receptacle and
  Connector the PICML Model Intelligence either (1) auto-complete
  the connection name or (2) display a dialog for selecting the
  correct connection name.

. Support for deployment of ComponentAssembly elements under
  the new modeling semantics for PICML.

. Implemented the the first version of the ConnectorInstance
  decorator that displays the name and implementation type of a
  connector instance.

Release CoSMIC-0.8.0
===================================================================

. Added support for complex types, i.e., structures and sequences,
  to configuration properties in the deployment plan. This caused
  the metamodel to change and break existing models. Please use
  the latest migration script at the following location in the
  PICML paradigm directory to convert existing models.

. Implemented Beta version of the Property Manager, which is an
  interperter for manipulating property values. Currently, the
  Property Manager supports basic types, structures, structures
  of structure, sequences, and sequences of structs. When dealing
  with sequences, the Property Manager can only added elements
  to the sequence. It is not able to remove elements, or move
  elements to new locations.

. Implemented deprecation support to the DataType element and
  the DataValue attribute on a Property. This will be removed
  completely in the next release.

Release CoSMIC-0.7.9
===================================================================

. Added support IDL3+. This included adding support for template
  modules, port types, extended ports, mirror ports, and
  connectors to the InterfaceDefinitions aspect.

. Added support for modeling and deploying different implementations
  of a component. This resulted in changing how to model component
  instances in an assembly. This will also require you to migrate
  existing models to the lastest version of PICML.

  Please see the StockQuoter example at the following location for
  how to use the new version of PICML:

    http://www.dre.vanderbilt.edu/~schmidt/DOC_ROOT/CIAO/tutorials/Quoter/Simple/03.html

  In addition, please see the MIGRATION file in the ./docs for
  information on migrating existing models.

. Upgraded to the latest version of GME. We will no longer support
  muliple versions of GME at this time. Instead, we will only support
  the latest version of GME.

. The deployment plan interpreter now generates a supplemental .cdd
  file for each deployment it generates. If a property of type String
  with the following name is attached to a NodeReference:

    . StringIOR
    . CORBAName

  then the deployment plan interpreter will add the corresponding
  properties for that node to the generated .ccd file.

. The default component implementation generator has been added
  to the interpreter toolbar.

Release CoSMIC-0.7.8
===================================================================

. Enum type property values are supported.

. External ports are now defined as an Atom instead of
  as a Reference.

. Location of the external port can not be empty.

. Multiple ports connected to the same external port must of
  the same kind and object type.

. LEESA has been moved to its own repository. Please visit
  http://www.dre.vanderbilt.edu/LEESA


Release CoSMIC-0.7.7
===================================================================

. Re-enable the model intelligence feature that auto-generates default
  artifacts when a new Component is added to an File model element.

. When a user adds a new Component to the model, they can
  rename the component and set the suffix of the implementation
  and servant artifact.

. Implmented an IDL text editor, which allows end-users to
  write IDL instead of modeling it. When the user saves the
  file, it is serialized back into the model. It an be accessed
  using the following steps:

    1. Right click on File in tree view
    2. Select Interpret
    3. Select IDLTextEditor in listing

. LEESA supports "typed XML programming" in C++ based on Codesynthesis's
  open-source XML data binding tool: xsdcxx. Major enhacements are:

    1. New LEESA homepage at http://www.dre.vanderbilt.edu/LEESA.
    2. Support for succint XPath-like traversals including child,
       sibling, descendant axes, wildcards, and "tuple-fication" of
       siblings while being schema-aware. Optimized Carrier<T> for
       fast query execution.
    3. Python script gen-meta.py externalizes meta-information and
       generates new "type-driven" data access layer from C++ headers
       generated by xsdcxx. Generates skeleton for hierarchical visitor.
    4. Several new functionality and performance tests for small to
       very large XML schemas (downloadable from the LEESA homepage).
    5. Compiles on g++ 4.4.2.


Release CoSMIC-0.7.4.5
===================================================================

. Temporarily disabled the model intelligence feature that auto-generates the default artifacts
  when a new component is added to the model. This feature will be released in the next version
  of PICML/CoSMIC. Contact: James Hill <hillj@cs.iupui.edu>

. LEESA ships with a new Perl script called gen-pairs.pl that extends
  Udm generated header file with additional meta-information (IsDescendant
  and VisitorAsIndex) to speed up compilation.


Release CoSMIC-0.7.4
===================================================================

*   CoSMIC supports ACE/TAO/CIAO 0.7.4

*   Depending upon the version of GME chosen, different CoSMIC installers are
    available.
    o   GME 9.8.28 with UDM 3.2.1 built using Visual Studio 2008 (VC9)
    o   GME 7.6.29 with UDM 3.1.2 built using Visual Studio 2005 (VC8)

*   Updated PICML to support CIAO/DAnCE 0.7.3.
    o   Entry points for a component implementation are no longer defined
        on an ImplementationArtifact element. Now, entry points are defined
        on the ComponentExecutorArtifact or ComponentServantArtifact that
        is attached to MonolithicImplementation element.
    o   Implemented a new interpreter named ComponentImplementationGenerator
        that will generate the default implementation and artifacts for an
        existing component in the interface definitions. This interpreter can
        be accessed via the interpreter dialog box (File | Run Interpreter...)
    o   The deployment plan interpreter now inserts plan locality information
        in the generated deployment plan. The deployment plan interpreter now
        generated spec-compliant XML for its generated deployment plans.
    o   Contact: James Hill <hillj@cs.iupui.edu>

*   IDL_TO_PICML
    o   Support for the MCPP preprocessor has been added to the idl_to_picml
        tool. This replaces the default system preprocessor and will result
        in some speed improvement.
    o   Bug fix: idl_to_picml now uses fully scoped names when generating a
        component implementation and its default artifacts to avoid name
        clashes.
    o   Bug fix: Under certain unknown circumstances, idl_to_picml failed
        to generate UUIDs on the necessary modeling elements.
    o   Bug fix: A memory deletion problem associated with
        XMLString::transcode has been fixed.
    o   Bug fix (3740): A problem of raising an unknown exception when
        -i command-line option is specified has been fixed.
    o   Bug fix (3742): Front end of idl_to_picml now handles upto 1024
        .idl files at the command-line.
    o   Bug fix (3749): Simplified idl_to_picml project to use tao_idl_fe
        project only.
    o   Contact: Jeff Parsons <j.parsons@vanderbilt.edu>

*   LEESA
    o   A new StateMachine (SM) paradigm and a corresponding interpreter have
        been added to show how to use LEESA in a UDM-based project.
    o   Documentation of LEESA has been enhanced.
    o   Contact: Sumant Tambe < sutambe@dre.vanderbilt.edu>

The sources of CoSMIC beta release version 0.7.4 can be found under
“CoSMIC-0_7_4” tag of the CoSMIC subversion repository.


Release CoSMIC-0.7.3
===================================================================

*   LEESA:
    o   LEESA is a new way of writing traversals over typed object structures,
        such as models and XML documents. LEESA (Language for Embedded quEry
        and traverSAl) is a domain-specific embedded language (DSEL) in C++
        that provides a succinct and expressive notation for writing object
        structure traversal. For more information please see
        $(CoSMIC installation directory)\Traversal\LEESA.pdf
    o   Contact: Sumant Tambe <sutambe@dre.vanderbilt.edu>


Release CoSMIC-beta-0.6.3
===================================================================

*   PICML:
    o   Enabled support for modeling complex type Property elements, such as
        collections, aggregates, and enums.

*   PICMLManager:
    o   It replaces old UUIDManager addon.
    o   Handles generating a unique name for the PublishConnector object
        when its added to a component assembly.
    o   When an AttributeValue connection is added to a model, i.e., creating
        a connection between an attribute and a property, the manager ensures
        the referenced data type in the property is the correct type. This
        includes autonomously adding the correct data type to the property,
        or making sure the current referenced data type is the same type as
        the attribute.
    o   When an attribute is given a new data type, PICMLManager ensures that
        all properties of the target attribute in the component assembly
        model has the newly selected data type.
    o   When an ExternalDelegate connection is created between an
        ExternalPortReference and a port (e.g., ProvidedEventPort,
        RequiredEventPort, InEventPort, or OutEventPort), the referenced
        object for the ExternalEventPort is set to the referenced object
        for the target port.
    o   Contact: James H. Hill  <hillj@isis.vanderbilt.edu>

*   PropertyManager:
    o   A new interpreter that simplifies setting the values of complex type
        Property values.

*   Component Behavior Modeling Language (CBML) has new features.
    o   Added modeling support for do-while, for, and while loops. They
        have the same modeling semantics as branch states.
    o   Contact: James H. Hill  <hillj@isis.vanderbilt.edu>

*   CIAOEvents Project
    o   EventChannelConfiguration model and an interpreter for CQML
    o   Contact: Friedhelm Wolf <fwolf@dre.vanderbilt.edu>

*   NetQoS
    o   New OCL constraints to check the well-formedness of the model using
        NetQoS.
    o   Contact: Sumant Tambe <sutambe@dre.vanderbilt.edu>

*   Bug fixes:
    o   DeploymentPlan Interpreter: The implementation detail of a component
        instance is now determined by the component instance’s type, and not
        its name. Selecting the implementation detail based on the component
        instance’s name was a problem when a subtype of a component, or any
        component instance, was given the incorrect name.
    o   DeploymentPlan Interpreter: The type information for monolithic
        components of component assembly instances that were contained in
        another component assemblies was not handled correctly.
    o   Contact: James H. Hill  <hillj@isis.vanderbilt.edu>

The sources of CoSMIC beta release version 0.6.3 can be found under
“CoSMIC-beta-0.6.3” tag of the CoSMIC subversion repository.


Release CoSMIC-beta-0.5.7
===================================================================

*   CQML: A new paradigm called CQML captures higher level system
    quality-of-service (QoS) design intent of the designer. Following is a
    list of different QoS modeling capabilities of CQML:
    o   Fault-tolerance aspect modeling supports modeling of protected
        components, degree of replication, replication style and more. The
        interpreter augments deployment plan with replica components,
        connections and decides a placement for all the components.
    o   Network QoS modeling supports modeling of bidirectional bandwidth
        requirements of CCM level connections. Also it supports traffic
        characteristic modeling.
    o   Real-time configuration model checking capabilities using BOGOR
        generates the Bogor Input Representation (BIR) for RT configuration
        options (component-level) specified in CQML models.
    o   Real-time configuration modeling supports modeling of Real-time
        options at the component level. The interpreter generates
        correspondingly server resources file(s) and augments the deployment
        plan with RT policies for that plan.
    o   Security QoS modeling allows the modeling of Security QoS policies
        and Role-Based Access Control to allow specification of permissions
        on resource access such as assemblies, components, ports, operations,
        attributes, critical paths, etc.

*  DeploymentPlanFramework (DPFramework) is an extensible framework that
    provides a fixed set of extension points where a deployment plan can be
    extended with QoS specific metadata. Many of the CQML interpreters are
    implemented as extensions to the DPFramework.


Release CoSMIC-0.4.8
===================================================================

*   Modeling of component behavior is supported using I/O Automata language.
    It is based on the formalism of Input/Output automata. The interpreter
    generates a workload characterization file which can be further used to
    drive the workload emulators.

*   New command line option for the IDL importer: -r <path>. This option
    takes the place of a list of IDL files, and causes the importer to
    process all IDL files in <path> and its subdirectories.

*   IDL importer now automatically adds $TAO_ROOT, $TAO_ROOT/tao, $CIAO_ROOT,
    and $CIAO_ROOT/ciao to its set of include paths.

*   A new paradigm sheet with ability to generate all available path diagrams
    originating out of a chosen port within the given model. The required
    port needs to be chosen and subsequently the interpreter needs to be run
    which generates all the possible paths through which control can flow in
    the run-time. Helps detecting possible faults in design and architecture.

*   The CIDL interpreter now generates a one-to-one mapping of CIDL files to
    IDL files specified in a project.

*   It also preserves factories declared in packages by using module
    declarations. This prevents factories having the same declaration and
    located in different packages from being overwritten.

*   Enhanced QoSPML (QoS Policy Modeling Language) and integrated it into
    PICML. This language is available in the RTConfiguration model in PICML
    and allows developers to model RT-CCM entities such as thread-pools with
    lanes, priority banded connections and priority propagation models as
    well as some CIAO-specific configurations such as command line options
    and service configuration filenames.

*   Added an interpreter which produces XML configuration code based on the
    RTConfiguration models in PICML. The output is conformant to the XML
    schema available at $CIAO_ROOT/docs/schema/CIAOServerResources.xsd

*   A new modeling language has been added to CoSMIC that provides high level
    QoS modeling and meta-modeling.  This language is currently an alpha
    implementation and its use is not currently recommended as it will
    undergo substantial changes and improvement in forthcoming releases.

*   Added enhancements to the flat-plan interpreter to deploy multiple
    instances of a component across multiple nodes.

*   Fixed a number of bugs in the flat-plan interpreter.


Release CoSMIC-0.4.6
===================================================================

*   A new "attribute mapping" feature which allows values for attributes to
    specified at the assembly level and allows propagation of the values to
    individual components in the assembly.

*   MPC interpreter now generates MPC files which are in-sync with the MPC
    config modules in $ACE_ROOT/bin/MakeProjectCreator/config

*   Improved constraints which catch a lot more errors compared with
    previous versions.

*   Importing IDL files into PICML models automatically fills a lot of the
    modeling artifacts which had to created by the user previously.

*   First-cut implementation of importing an updated IDL file with changes
    into an existing PICML model.

*   FlatPlan interpreter is available as one of the interpreters.  Many
    bugs have been fixed in the FlatPlan interpreter compared to the version
    that was available with beta releases of CoSMIC 0.4.6.

*   Improved installer which should fix a lot of problems with installing
    CoSMIC.  The installer has been tested on Windows XP SP2, Windows XP
    SP1a, Windows 2000 SP4, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP x64.