Keynote Abstract - On the Use of Quantitative Models for Open-World Software

Modern software applications increasingly live in an open world, characterized by continuous change. Continuous changes occur autonomously and unpredictably, in a way that is largely out of control of the application designer. Hence they ask for software solutions that can easily evolve and dynamically adapt their behavior to provide continuous service as changes occur. Continuous change asks for quantitative QoS assessment. Modeling is viewed as a conceptual tool in the requirements and design stages of software development, which may help derive quality software. The article focusses on quantitative models that allow software engineers to reason about non-functional properties of an application, such as performance or reliability.