1 st Workshop on Model - driven Software Adaptation M - ADAPT ’ 07 at ECOOP 2007

A major application of dynamic adaptation is the development of safe and reliable embedded systems. In contrast to classical redundancy approaches dynamic adaptation can react much more flexible to different kinds of errors including changes in the environment. Moreover dynamic adaptation can usually be realized much more cost-efficient than classical redundancy or faulttolerance mechanisms. Using dynamic adaptation for developing dependable systems requires means to explicitly specify the adaptation behavior and to analyze the effects of dynamic adaptation on system reliability and particularly safety. However, these activities are very complex and error prone and hence pose the need for a sound and seamless engineering support. For this reason, this position paper points out some of the lessons we have learned over the last years of applying and advancing dynamic adaptation for the development of safe and reliable adaptive systems. We furthermore discuss and classify current achievements in research and practice and derive corresponding future research challenges.