Speaker: Valerio Panzica La Manna, Politecnico di Milano, Italy


Title: Safe and Efficient Dynamic Software Update of Component-based
Distributed Systems.

Abstract

Dynamic evolution is a key aspect of the design, development, and
maintenance of complex and distributed software systems built by
integrating components. Evolution, traditionally obtained by producing
software upgrades, may derive from changes in the requirements or in
the environment, from the need to incorporate new implemented versions
and optimizations. Upgrades typically require the software system to
be shutdown, updated and restarted. However, a large number of
applications require to offer a continuous service and they cannot be
stopped while incorporating the changes.

The seminar presents our recent results in the area of dynamic
software updates with a focus on the automatic identification of safe
updatability criteria. These criteria, derived by the interactions
between software components or driven by changes in the specification,
can be applied to safely and efficiently update software systems at
run-time.

Short Bio

Valerio Panzica La Manna is a PhD Candidate in Software Engineering at
Politecnico di Milano, Italy, under the supervision of Prof. Carlo
Ghezzi.

In 2009, he took the Laurea Magistrale (Master Degree) cum laude in
"Ingegneria Informatica" (Computer Science Engineering) at Politecnico
di Milano, and in 2010, the Master Of Science in Computer Science at
UIC, University of Illinois at Chicago. In 2013, he received the IBM
PhD Fellowship Award, and he is currently a Research Intern at IBM R&D
Labs in Israel.

His current research, in the context of the EU-funded project SMSCom,
focuses on dynamic software update. He is particularly interested in
applying model-based techniques to safely update software components
at run-time without system service interruption. Furthermore, he is
interested in self-adaptive software, software testing, and
scenario-based specification.