Using Runtime State Analysis to Decide Applicability of Dynamic Software Updates

Oleg Šelajev, Allan Gregersen

2017

Abstract

Updating application code while it is running is a popular approach to the dynamic software update problem. But in many cases the behavior of the updated application bears side effects of the update in the form of a runtime phenomena that breaks application state assumptions leading to unwanted complications. We present a runtime state analysis system, Genrih, that enhances a dynamic system update solution and automatically decides if the state transformation functions of a DSU solution are sufficient for the given update. Genrih analyzes the atomic changes in the updated code compared to the already running version and based on these changes automatically determines whether updating the system’s runtime state will lead to the observable runtime phenomena. The designed system does not break the update procedure, but observes the state and produces notifications for enhanced analysis and crash management. The practical evaluation shows that the designed system imposes acceptable overhead and can help the developer be aware of several kinds of runtime phenomena.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Šelajev O. and Gregersen A. (2017). Using Runtime State Analysis to Decide Applicability of Dynamic Software Updates . In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Software Technologies - Volume 1: ICSOFT, ISBN 978-989-758-262-2, pages 38-49. DOI: 10.5220/0006400900380049

in Bibtex Style

@conference{icsoft17,
author={Oleg Šelajev and Allan Gregersen},
title={Using Runtime State Analysis to Decide Applicability of Dynamic Software Updates},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Software Technologies - Volume 1: ICSOFT,},
year={2017},
pages={38-49},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0006400900380049},
isbn={978-989-758-262-2},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Software Technologies - Volume 1: ICSOFT,
TI - Using Runtime State Analysis to Decide Applicability of Dynamic Software Updates
SN - 978-989-758-262-2
AU - Šelajev O.
AU - Gregersen A.
PY - 2017
SP - 38
EP - 49
DO - 10.5220/0006400900380049