Open call for PhD position in software engineering and cloud computing (University of Lille and University of Mons)

The computer science departments of University of Lille and University of Mons (Belgium) seek applications for a PhD position in software engineering, under joint co-supervision between Prof. Laurence Duchien (Spirals team, CRIStAL laboratory, Lille) and Prof. Tom Mens (Software Engineering Lab, INFORTECH Research Institute, Mons). The funding will be for a PhD in Sciences for a 3 year period. The candidate should carry out 18 months of his research in each team. Lille and Mons are 80 km away (1 hour by train).

The topic of the thesis will be "Exploring the variability and evolution of cloud computing systems – An approach based on feature modelling and behavioural design models". A more detailed description is provided below. Only highly qualified PhD candidates with a master's degree in computer science should apply. The required skills include very good knowledge in the field of software engineering, excellent programming skills and good knowledge of formal tools.
The start date of the employment is expected to be 15 September 2017 or as soon as possible thereafter.

Applications will be received electronically (by e-mail) *as soon as possible*, and  the call will be closed end of April 2017.

The application must contain:
+ a motivation letter including a statement of your research interests
+ a full curriculum vitae, including list of publications if any
+ a copy of your master's thesis and publications, if any
+ a copy of your bachelor and master diplomas and transcripts of record, including grades and relative position
+ a minimum of two letters of recommendation, including the contact details of the referents

Applications received too late or not complying with the above requirements, may not be considered. Enquiries about the position can be made to Prof. Laurence Duchien, University of Lille, France, Laurence.Duchien@univ-lille1.fr
or Prof. Tom Mens, University of Mons, Belgium, tom.mens@umons.ac.be

Short description of thesis topic: Cloud computing systems usually exhibit high variability due to the number of choices concerning the selection of cloud providers as well as of their offered cloud services. At the same time, they provide a flexible environment, where resources and services can be provisioned and released on demand. To cope with the high volatility and variability of such systems, the goal of the thesis is to propose a model-based approach for expressing their variability, facilitating their evolution, and exploring the design space of possible solutions. The proposed approach will rely on research advances in dynamic software product lines [1], and will use techniques such as feature modelling to specify and analyse the variabilities and commonalities in cloud computing services and providers at a high level of abstraction [2]. Behavioural aspects of these systems will be modelled using statechart-based design models [3,4], and the technique of design by contract will be used to constrain these models [5]. Semi-automated and interactive tool support will be provided to verify and test structural and behavioural properties over these models. In addition, evolution of these models will be supported. In particular, the research should focus on support for behaviour preserving refactoring and dynamic reconfiguration. The practical use of these techniques to explore and traverse the design space of cloud environments will also be explored by an extension of SALOON tools [2,6] and an experimental validation on cloud evolutions defined by several providers. For example, when reconfiguring a cloud environment, the selected set features (representing cloud providers and services) may have a different impact on performance, costs or reconfiguration time, and optimal reconfiguration paths should be proposed.

References:
[1] S. Hallsteinsen, M. Hinchey, S. Park, and K. Schmid. Dynamic software product lines. COMPUTER, 41(4):93-95, 2008
[2] C. Quinton, D. Romero, and L. Duchien. SALOON: a platform for selecting and configuring cloud environments. Software: Practice and Experience, 46(1):55{78, 2016
[3] D. Harel and E. Gery, “Executable object modeling with statecharts,” IEEE Computer, vol. 30, no. 7, pp. 31–42, July 1997
[4] D. Drusinsky, Modeling and Verification Using UML Statecharts. Elsevier Science, 2006.
[5] B. Meyer. 1992. Applying "Design by Contract". Computer 25, 10 (October 1992), 40-51
[6] https://team.inria.fr/spirals/saloon/