Skip to Content

Research

The Centre for Complex Software Systems and Services (CS3) focuses on addressing key requirements and challenges in building and providing complex software systems and services. The increasingly interconnected and pervasive software-based systems have become an integral part of today’s networked economy and society, providing essential services to business and community. With the ever growing digital connectivity and demands for new software services, the rapidly growing complexity of software in these systems has widely been recognised as one of the great challenges for software developers, providers and users. Such software is often required to operate in distributed and embedded computing environments, interact and collaborate with other software systems and services, dynamically adapt to changes in operating environments, and behave in a dependable manner.
In general, complex software systems and services are large-scale distributed systems formed by a collection of many interacting software entities in the heterogeneous, dynamic and decentralised environments. The key technical requirements and research challenges faced by these systems include:

  • Interoperability - to enable seamless interaction between the parts within a system and across different systems.
  • Composability – to enable flexible and on-demand assembly and organisation of the parts into a system.
  • Adaptability – to enable dynamic adaptation and evolution of the system in response to the changes within the system and its environment.
  • Intelligence – to enable autonomic operation of the parts and systems, hiding the inherent complexities from the users.

 

Driven by the above requirements and challenges the Centre’s research focuses on developing new methods, techniques and tools for the modelling, engineering and management of complex software systems and services. It involves research across the following research programs:

  • Component Software Technology program conducts research into component based engineering of complex software systems and services, focusing on system integration, interoperability, architecture, qualities (such as security and safety), and evolution. Program Leader: Prof Jun Han.

  • Intelligent Agent Technology program conducts research into intelligent agents and multi-agent systems, focusing on autonomous negotiation and decision-making, coordination and adaptation mechanisms, and their applications in building and managing complex software systems and services. Program Leader: Prof Ryszard Kowalczyk.

  • Web and Data Technology program conducts research into development and application of web and database technologies for complex software systems and services, focusing on non-conventional database applications including web data management, web services, and business process management. Program Leader: Prof Chengfei Liu.

  • Workflow Technology program conducts research into workflow technologies for complex software systems and services including peer-to-peer, grid, and cloud computing based e-science, e-business, transactional and inter-organisational workflows. Program Leader: Prof Yun Yang.

The Centre targets the following types and applications of complex software systems and services:

  • Service Oriented Systems,
  • Enterprise Software Systems,
  • Social Software Systems
  • Cloud Computing Systems


Back to Top