Putting Components into Context Supporting QoS-Predictions with an explicit Context Model

The evaluation of Quality of Service (QoS) attributes in early development stages of a software product is an active research area. For component-based systems, this yields many challenges, since a component can be deployed and used by third parties in various environments, which influence the functional and extra-functional properties of a component. Current component models do not reflect these environmental dependencies sufficiently. In this position statement, we motivate an explicit context model for software components. A context model exists for each single component and contains its connections, its containment, the allocation on hardand software resources, the usage profile, and the perceived functional and extra-functional properties in the actual environment. 1