ADSL: An Embedded Domain-Specific Language for Constraint-Based Distributed Self-Management

Resilience is an important property of cyber defence systems operating in complex, adversarial environments. In previous work, we have developed the AWaRE approach for enabling cyber resilience via distributed, agent-oriented, constraint-based self-management. A key requirement and feature of AWaRE is the programmatic definition of constraint problems and their mapping to suitable coordination architectures in a way that supports run-time self-representation and self-organization. This can be satisfied via a domain-specific language (DSL); however, existing DSLs, e.g. for automated deployment and self-adaptivity, are not suitable for this purpose. In this paper, we present an expressive, Java-embedded DSL named ADSL that enables the design-time specification of system components, inter-component relationships and constraints, constraint problem decompositions, managing agent architectures, and sub-problem to agent mappings – and the run-time use of these specifications to achieve self-management in accordance with the models@run.time paradigm. Our initial validation of ADSL in the context of an enterprise scenario demonstrates the suitability of the language.