arXiv subjects

Tomas Cerny

Publications and source records attributed to Tomas Cerny.

26 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2023

Comparing 2D and Augmented Reality Visualizations for Microservice System Understandability: A Controlled Experiment

Microservice-based systems are often complex to understand, especially when their sizes grow. Abstracted views help practitioners with the system understanding from a certain perspective. Recent advancement in interactive data visualization begs the question of whether established software engineering models to visualize system design remain the most suited approach for the service-oriented design of microservices. Our recent work proposed presenting a 3D visualization for microservices in augmented reality. This paper analyzes whether such an approach brings any benefits to practitioners when dealing with selected architectural questions related to system design quality. For this purpose, we conducted a controlled experiment involving 20 participants investigating their performance in identifying service dependency, service cardinality, and bottlenecks. Results show that the 3D enables novices to perform as well as experts in the detection of service dependencies, especially in large systems, while no differences are reported for the identification of service cardinality and bottlenecks. We recommend industry and researchers to further investigate AR for microservice architectural analysis, especially to ease the onboarding of new developers in microservice~projects.

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arXiv2022

Microvision: Static analysis-based approach to visualizing microservices in augmented reality

Microservices are supporting digital transformation; however, fundamental tools and system perspectives are missing to better observe, understand, and manage these systems, their properties, and their dependencies. Microservices architecture leans toward decentralization, which yields many advantages to system operation; it, however, brings challenges to their development. Microservices lack a system-centric perspective to better cope with system evolution and quality assessment. In this work, we explore microservice-specific architecture reconstruction based on static analysis. Such reconstruction typically results in system models to visualize selected system-centric perspectives. Conventional models are limited in utility when the service cardinality is high. We consider an alternative data visualization using 3D space using augmented reality. To begin testing the feasibility of deriving such perspectives from microservice systems, we developed and implemented prototype tools for software architecture reconstruction and visualization of compared perspectives.

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arXiv2022

Microservice Architecture Reconstruction and Visualization Techniques: A Review

Microservice system solutions are driving digital transformation; however, fundamental tools and system perspectives are missing to better observe, understand, and manage these systems, their properties, and their dependencies. Microservices architecture leads towards decentralization, which implies many advantages to system operation; it, however, brings challenges to their development. Microservice systems often lack a system-centric perspective that would help engineers better cope with system evolution and quality assessment. In this work, we explored microservice-specific architecture reconstruction based on static analysis. Such reconstruction typically results in system models to visualize selected system-centric perspectives. Conventional models involve 2D methods; however, these methods are limited in utility when services proliferate. We considered various architectural perspectives relevant to microservices and assessed the relevancy of the traditional method, comparing it to alternative data visualization using 3D space. As a representative of the 3D method, we considered a 3D graph model presented in augmented reality. To begin testing the feasibility of deriving such perspectives from microservice systems, we developed and implemented prototype tools for software architecture reconstruction and visualization of compared perspectives. Using these prototypes, we performed a small user study with software practitioners to highlight the potentials and limitations of these innovative visualizations used for common practitioner reasoning and tasks.

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arXiv2022

Using Microservice Telemetry Data for System Dynamic Analysis

Microservices bring various benefits to software systems. They also bring decentralization and lose coupling across self-contained system parts. Since these systems likely evolve in a decentralized manner, they need to be monitored to identify when possibly poorly designed extensions deteriorate the overall system quality. For monolith systems, such tasks have been commonly addressed through static analysis. However, given the decentralization and possible language diversity across microservices, static analysis tools are lacking. On the other hand, there are available tools commonly used by practitioners that offer centralized logging, tracing, and metric collection for microservices. In this paper, we assess the opportunity to combine current dynamic analysis tools with anomaly detection in the form of quality metrics and anti-patterns. We develop a tool prototype that we use to assess a large microservice system benchmark demonstrating the feasibility and potential of such an approach.

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arXiv2022

Survey on Tools and Techniques Detecting Microservice API Patterns

It is well recognized that design patterns improve system development and maintenance in many aspects. While we commonly recognize these patterns in monolithic systems, many patterns emerged for cloud computing, specifically microservices. Unfortunately, while various patterns have been proposed, available quality assessment tools often do not recognize many. This article performs a grey literature review to find and catalog available tools to detect microservice API patterns (MAP). It reasons about mechanisms that can be used to detect these patterns. Furthermore, the results indicate gaps and opportunities for improvements for quality assessment tools. Finally, the reader is provided with a route map to detection techniques that can be used to mine MAPs.

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arXiv2022

Static analysis tools in the era of cloud-native systems

Microservices fuel cloud-native systems with small service sets developed and deployed independently. The independent nature of this modular architecture also leads to challenges and gaps. The intended system design might deviate far from what is eventually produced and maintained as the architecture tends to degrade over time. This paper challenges the audience on how static analysis could contribute to microservice system development and management, particularly managing architectural degradation. It elaborates on challenges and needed changes in the traditional code analysis to better fit these systems and discusses implications for practitioners once robust static analysis tools become available

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arXiv2019

Aspects of Quality in Internet of Things (IoT) Solutions: A Systematic Mapping Study

Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging technology that has the promising power to change our future. Due to the market pressure, IoT systems may be released without sufficient testing. However, it is no longer acceptable to release IoT systems to the market without assuring the quality. As in the case of new technologies, the quality assurance process is a challenging task. This paper shows the results of the first comprehensive and systematic mapping study to structure and categories the research evidence in the literature starting in 2009 when the early publication of IoT papers for IoT quality assurance appeared. The conducted research is based on the most recent guidelines on how to perform systematic mapping studies. A set of research questions is defined carefully regarding the quality aspects of the IoT. Based on these questions, a large number of evidence and research papers is considered in the study (478 papers). We have extracted and analyzed different levels of information from those considered papers. Also, we have classified the topics addressed in those papers into categories based on the quality aspects. The study results carry out different areas that require more work and investigation in the context of IoT quality assurance. The results of the study can help in a further understanding of the research gaps. Moreover, the results show a roadmap for future research directions.

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arXiv2018

Internet of Things: Current Challenges in the Quality Assurance and Testing Methods

Contemporary development of the Internet of Things (IoT) technology brings a number of challenges in the Quality Assurance area. Current issues related to security, user's privacy, the reliability of the service, interoperability, and integration are discussed. All these create a demand for specific Quality Assurance methodology for the IoT solutions. In the paper, we present the state of the art of this domain and we discuss particular areas of system testing discipline, which is not covered by related work sufficiently so far. This analysis is supported by results of a recent survey we performed among ten IoT solutions providers, covering various areas of IoT applications.

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