[ecoop-info] 2 positions (PhD/Post-doc) available in Formal Methods for cloud computing and evolving systems, U. of Oslo

[Martin Steffen]

Up-to 2 positions (PhD and/or Postdoc) in computer science available at the
Department of Informatics, University of Oslo.

The positions will be filled (depending on applicants) by PhD students
and/or Postdoctoral research fellows.

Topics:
        1) Virtualized framework for dynamic evolution of products
	   in software product lines.
        2) Formal methods for cloud computing 




    o Both kinds of positions are for a period of 3 years, starting spring 2015.

    o For more detailed information about how to apply, formal application
      requirements, terms of employment etc., cf. the webpages

      - http://uio.easycruit.com/vacancy/1318305/64290?iso=no  (for applying as PostDoc)
      - http://uio.easycruit.com/vacancy/1318287/64290?iso=no  (for applying for a PhD position)

    o Contact persons:

         - Ingrid Chieh Yu         (ingridcy at ifi.uio.no)
	 - Einar Broch Johnsen     (einarj at ifi.uio.no)

More detailed job/project description:

   1-2 positions combining formal methods, software product lines, and
  cloud computing are available at the Department of Informatics,
  University of Oslo. The positions will participate in an international
  research team on formal methods for cloud computing in the research group
  for Precise Modeling and Analysis. The positions are part of the HyVar
  project, which is a European research project starting in 2015, funded by
  the Horizon 2020 framework, with partners from Norway, Italy, and
  Germany. Participation in European projects is ideal for young
  researchers who want to do research which is industrially relevant,
  collaborate across borders, and establish an international research
  network. The HyVar partners include leading research groups from three
  European universities and advanced technology developers from
  Industry. For more information about HyVar, see
  http://www.hyvar-project.eu.

   Software today is increasingly often upgraded after deployment by means
   of software patches. At the same time, the software is more and more
   individualized, adapted to the preferences and needs of the specific
   customer. In the future, we may expect that also the upgrades themselves
   will be increasingly individualized; e.g., the software patches used to
   upgrade the software are selected and adapted depending on the
   configuration and external constraints of the host device. The overall
   goal of HyVar is a development framework for continuous and
   individualized evolution of distributed software applications running on
   remote devices in heterogeneous environments. The framework will combine
   variability modeling from software product lines with formal methods and
   software upgrades, and be integrated in existing software development
   processes. HyVar plans to integrate and enhance state-of-the-art
   techniques for the management of complex software systems from software
   product lines with cutting edge technology for over-the-air software
   upgrades and scalable Cloud solutions from European industry to support
   highly individualized and reconfigurable distributed applications.

   In the HyVar project, the University of Oslo is responsible for
    ``Scalable Cloud Infrastructure'', and in particular will do research
    within the following areas:

    1) Virtualized framework for dynamic evolution of products in software
       product lines:

    The challenge is to devise a solution for how the features of a product
    in a software product line can be selected, configured, and
    reconfigured based on dynamically provided information. The solution
    will allow different remote devices to get individually adapted product
    instances, which evolve and reconfigure over time in an equally
    individual manner. To reconfigure the product instance, the algorithm
    will receive environment specific data from the remote device, such as,
    e.g., real-time sensor data. Since reconfiguration is highly
    individualized to each product instance and there can be a considerable
    number of remote devices, the targeted reconfiguration algorithm needs
    to elastic and designed for deployment on the Cloud.

   2)      Formal methods for cloud computing:

    The challenge is to devise and verify a formal model of the virtualized
    reconfiguration framework, in particular with respect to its elastic
    and scalable behavior. The goal is to identify requirements to the
    underlying cloud infrastructure on which the reconfiguration framework
    will be deployed, which ensure that the framework will meet its timing
    requirements while it scales to the varying number of reconfiguration
    tasks for the product instances on different remote devices. Based on
    the formal model, we will further investigate methods to validate the
    deployed reconfiguration framework. This could for example involve test
    case generation for virtualized infrastructure, distributed monitoring,
    and other techniques.


* Applicant's background:


   Hence the ideal candidate would have a background in (some of) the
   following areas:

               formal methods,
	       software verification or validation,
               software product line engineering, and
	       cloud computing.


* Environment

    The Department of Informatics (IFI) is one of nine departments
    belonging to the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the
    University of Oslo. IFI is Norway's largest university department for
    general education and research in Computer Science and related
    topics. You can read more about the department here:
    http://www.ifi.uio.no. The department has close to 800 students on the
    Bachelor level, nearly 300 Master-level students, and nearly 200 PhD
    students. The total staff of the Department is about 250 employees, of
    which about 150 are full-time scientific positions, with about 60
    professors and associate professors.