Towards an Architecture for Reactive Systems Using an Active Real-Time Database and Standardized Components

Component-based concepts are used to an increasing extent in software design since they allow high-quality software to be generated within short time and hence at low costs. By contrast component technologies up till now do not provide the means of composing the software from components without additional programming. The reason for this lies in the combined transfer of control and data flow and the fact that there is no standardized control flow. Here an architecture model is presented that separates the transfer of the two information flows. The data flow is transferred via an active real-time database (ARTDB) and the control flow reduced to a few, indispensable commands. In this way it is possible to design applications simply by combining and configuring components without any additional code development. Initial positive experience with this architecture was gained from its industrial application. It was possible to demonstrate the suitability for systems with soft deadlines.