Mapping ADL Specifications to an Efficient and Reconfigurable Runtime Component Platform

Recent research has recognised the potential of coupling ADLs with underlying runtime environments to support systematic and integrated "specification-todeployment" architectures. However, while some promising results have been obtained, much of this research has not considered the crucial issue of causally-connected dynamic reconfiguration and has considered only domain-specific areas. In this paper we discuss a specification-to-deployment architecture called Plastik that employs an extended generalpurpose ADL and is underpinned by an efficient runtime that is suited both for high-level application development and low-level systems development (e.g. embedded systems). Runtime reconfiguration is supported both at the ADL level and at the runtime level, and both programmed reconfiguration and adhoc reconfiguration are supported. The paper focuses on the mapping of ADL-level specifications to runtime instantiations and on the necessary runtime support for causally-connected dynamic reconfiguration.