Towards a Uniform Modeling Technique for Resource-Usage Scenarios

Sensible resource management requires a thorough and detailed description of resource usage as the basis for static design decisions or dynamic resource trading. Such a description not only has to consider what resources are used and when, but also has to capture resource properties and resource interactions, for instance. In current practice, however, ad-hoc solutions predominate, only addressing selected resource types and isolated aspects. In this paper we pave the way for a uniform modeling technique for resource usage scenarios. We give a classification of resources, which covers both software and hardware resources uniformly, and discuss essential aspects of service provision, service requirements, and resource interaction. Based on these insights we present a structured description technique for hierarchically dependent software and hardware resources and propose a notation for basic description elements. The technique can be used for resource usage analysis over a wide range of abstraction levels and allows domain-specific description techniques to be integrated seamlessly, effectively side-stepping the limitations inherent to one-size-fits-all solutions.