Achieving Interoperability through Semantics-based Technologies:

The Instant Messaging Case

Amel Bennaceur and Valérie Issarny (Inria, France)

Romina Spalazzese (University of L’Aquila, Italy)

Shashank Tyagi (Banaras University, India)

ISWC 2012, 15th November 2012

2

Outline

The Interoperability challenge in pervasive environments

Automated synthesis of mediators• Ontology-based Modelling of Interaction Protocols • Ontology-based Model Checking

Implementation Lessons learned and future work

The Interoperability challenge in pervasive environments

Automated synthesis of mediators• Ontology-based Modelling of Interaction Protocols • Ontology-based Model Checking

Implementation Lessons learned and future work

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Interoperability in Pervasive Environments

Systems are becoming increasingly connected• Future Internet, Cyber-Physical System, Internet of Things• Integration becoming more difficult

Interactions among components cannot be planned beforehand• Increasingly dynamic• Unanticipated components

System and its components figure out how to interact dynamically• Automatically ensuring interoperation at runtime

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Illustrating the Interoperability Challenges

A plethora of applications with compatible functionalities• e.g., exchanging instant messages

Unable to interact • e.g., MSN and XMPP clients

Heterogeneous data and behavioral models • e.g., use of chat rooms

×

5

Existing Approaches to Interoperability

Standard: chosen shared language

e.g., XMPP

Interoperability platforms: one talks all languages

e.g., Pidgin, Adium

× × Transparent interoperability: Auxiliary language

e.g., J-EAI, CrossTalk

×

Transform on the fly using an intermediary system (the mediator) : Babel fish

e.g., WSMX

How can we synthesise ‘correct’ mediators automatically and deploy them on the network?

6

Outline

The Interoperability challenge in pervasive environments

Automated synthesis of mediators• Ontology-based Modelling of Interaction Protocols • Ontology-based Model Checking

Implementation Lessons learned and future work

The Interoperability challenge in pervasive environments

Automated synthesis of mediators• Ontology-based Modelling of Interaction Protocols • Ontology-based Model Checking

Implementation Lessons learned and future work

Dynamic Synthesis of Mediators

Sustaining composition in highly heterogeneous and dynamic environments• Semantics of networked systems needed to reason

about and achieve on-the-fly interoperability• Ontology for the description of functional semantics• Process algebra for the description of behavioural

semantics• Combining ontology reasoning and behavioural analysis

• To support the automated generation of mediators

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Dynamic Synthesis of Mediators

XMPPmodel

MSNPmodel

Behavioral Matching

Mediator

Modelling

Failure

Yes

No

Ontology-based Model Checking

Mediation

XMPPMSNP IM Ontology(OWL)

ab

dc

e

8

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FSP Syntax FSP Semantics

Action Prefix

Choice

Parallel Composition

Sequence

Modelling of Interaction Protocols

FSP (Finite State Processes)• Semantics described using labelled transition systems• Verification supported by the LTSA model checker• Actions do not have any semantics

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Ontology-based Modelling of Interaction Protocols

An action specifies• The operation required from or provided to the environment• The associated input and output data

OFSP Specification of MSNP

1111

OFSP Specification of XMPP

1212

13

Ontology-based Reasoning about Interaction Protocols

Action Subsumption• is subsumed by iff

• • •

e.g.,

• •

is subsumed by

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Ontology-based Reasoning about Interaction Protocols

Processes synchronise based on the semantics of actions

• If is subsumed by then generate to make them synchronise

Verify that the processes reach their final states using model checking

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Ontology-based Model Checking

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Outline

The Interoperability challenge in pervasive environments

Automated synthesis of mediators• Ontology-based Modelling of Interaction Protocols • Ontology-based Model Checking

Implementation Lessons learned and future work

The Interoperability challenge in pervasive environments

Automated synthesis of mediators• Ontology-based Modelling of Interaction Protocols • Ontology-based Model Checking

Implementation Lessons learned and future work

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Implementation

Ontology-based Model Checking(OLTSA)

Composer 2

Parser 2

Parser 1Composer

1

Mediator

Synthesis

XMPP Client MSN Client

SOCKS ProxyBuddyManagement

BindingManagement

DSL Specof messages

DSL Specof messages

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Mediator Performance

MSNP/MSNP

YMSG/YMSG

XMPP/XMPP

MSNP/YMSG

MSNP/XMPP

YMSG/XMPP

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

NativeHand-craftedAutomated

Ro

un

d T

rip

tim

e w

ith

10

0 c

ar

me

ss

ag

e (

ms

)

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Outline

The Interoperability challenge in pervasive environments

Automated synthesis of mediators• Ontology-based Modelling of Interaction Protocols • Ontology-based Model Checking

Implementation Lessons learned and future work

The Interoperability challenge in pervasive environments

Automated synthesis of mediators• Ontology-based Modelling of Interaction Protocols • Ontology-based Model Checking

Implementation Lessons learned and future work

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Lessons Learned (1)

It works!!!!

Automated synthesis of mediators

promises to address interoperability in a

future-proof manner

Ontologies have a key role to play in

supporting the automated synthesis of

mediators

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Lessons Learned (2)

Dealing with a larger set of mappings• One-to-many and many-to-many mappings• Dealing with ambiguous mappings

Extracting the system model automatically• Using automata learning to learn the behaviour• Using schema annotation to learn the annotations

Need for standard benchmarks• To evaluate the kind of mismatches that occur in real

systems• To compare with similar approaches

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Thank you

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Further Information

Home page: www-rocq.inria.fr/~bennaceu ARLES: www.rocq.inria.fr/arles CONNECT: connect-forever.eu

The Role of Ontologies in Emergent Middleware: Supporting Interoperability in Complex Distributed Systems, In Proc. Middleware 2011

Middleware-layer Connector Synthesis: Beyond State of the Art in Middleware Interoperability, In SFM 2011

Towards an architecture for runtime interoperability, In Proc. ISoLA 2010