Applying Model Differences to Automate Performance-Driven Refactoring of Software Models

Identifying and removing the causes of poor performance in software systems are complex problems, and these issues are usually tackled after software deployment only with human-based means. Performance antipatterns can be used to harness these problems since they capture design patterns that are known leading to performance problems, and they suggest refactoring actions that can solve the problems. This paper introduces an approach to automate software model refactoring based on performance antipatterns. A Role-Based Modeling Language is used to model antipattern problems as Source Role Models (SRMs), and antipattern solutions as Target Role Models (TRMs). Each (SRM, TRM) pair is represented by a difference model that encodes refactoring actions to be operated on a software model to remove the corresponding antipattern. Differences are applied to software models through a model transformation automatically generated by a higher-order transformation. The approach is shown at work on an example in the e-commerce domain.