Post on 10-May-2015
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Computer Platform Research Center - CIPI
Always-on Distributed Spreadsheet Mashups
Pierpaolo Baglietto (1), Fabrizio Cosso (2), Martino Fornasa (1), Simone Mangiante (1), Massimo Maresca (1), Andrea Parodi (2), Michele
Stecca (1)
(1) Computer Platform Research Center (CIPI) - University of Padova, University of Genova, Italy
(2) M3S S.r.l. - Genova, Italy
m.stecca@cipi.unige.it
Mashups’10Ayia Napa, Cyprus, Dec. 1st 2010
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Computer Platform Research Center - CIPI
1. Introduction2. Requirements3. Platform architecture and operating principles4. Hierarchical Enterprise Spreadsheet Mashup5. Platform implementation6. Discussion7. Conclusion
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Agenda
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Mashups are composite applications that allow to merge different functionalities, data sources, user interfaces, etc.
Mashups are usually defined as lightweight tools. According to the classification provided by Fischer et al. (2009), it is possible to identify some paradigms aiming at supporting the easy creation of composite services:
• Wiring paradigm (e.g., JackBe Presto, Yahoo Pipes!, etc.)• Spreadsheet-based frameworks (e.g. SpreadATOR, IBM A1, etc.)• Programming by demonstration (e.g., Dapper)• Automatic creation of Mashups (e.g., MaxMash)
In this paper we propose to improve the current generation of Spreadsheet-based Mashup tool by adding two new features:
The Distributed Spreadsheet Composition functionality, and The Always-on functionality (i.e., the Spreadsheet Mashup is updated
even if one or more components are offline)
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Introduction (1/2)
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CIPI’s research activities
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About our prototype based on the Wiring paradigm… It aims at combining data and services regardless the specific
technologies used for their implementation (e.g., RSS Feed, Rest WS, SOAP WS, etc.)
We re-use the Service Creation Environment developed during the FP6 project called OPUCE (Open Platform for User-Centric Creation and Execution)
We developed a platform for the execution of Event Driven Mashups (i.e., each basic block may generate one or more events during its execution)
We implemented different versions of the execution platform based on different technologies (Web Services, Java Message Service – JMS, and Plain JAVA code over Virtualized environments)
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Introduction (2/2)
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1. Introduction2. Requirements3. Platform architecture and operating principles4. Hierarchical Enterprise Spreadsheet Mashup5. The Car Dealers case study6. Platform implementation7. Discussion8. Conclusion
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Agenda
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Here is a list of 4 requirements that we identified for the usage of Mashup tools in the Enterprises
1. Support of lightweight creation of Situational Applications Spreadsheets are well known tools;
2. Support of reuse of already existing data Spreadsheets are widely used to store enterprise data;
3. Compliance with the distributed and hierarchical structure of enterprises different units of the same company may be geographically distributed;
4. Support of automatic updates and Always-on distributed Composite Spreadsheets synchronize the linked spreadsheets automatically even when one or more components of the distributed spreadsheet are offline.
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Requirements for Mashup tools
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cipi
Computer Platform Research Center - CIPI
1. Introduction2. Requirements3. Platform architecture and operating principles4. Hierarchical Enterprise Spreadsheet Mashup5. Platform implementation6. Discussion7. Conclusion
7
Agenda
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Components of the platform: A centralized server-side Composition Platform supports the
execution of spreadsheet data exportation and importation, manages user accounts, and synchronizes data across dependent spreadsheet;
A Client Plug-in integrated in the end-user spreadsheet application. It interacts with the composition platform by means of messages exchange and allows the user to import/export data through a graphical UI.
Spreadsheet types: Importer: it imports data from other Spreadsheets; Exporter: it exports data to other Spreadsheets; Intermediate: it is both an importer and an exporter at the same time,
and at least one exported cell is a function of an imported cell (via direct inclusion or formulas).
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Platform architecture and operating principles (1/2)
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Operating principles:
The exporter contribution update is periodically performed by each exporter Plug-in towards the platform;
The importer spreadsheet update is periodically performed by the importer Plug-in. The Plug-in periodically polls the platform for new contributions or updates;
The data propagation function works as follows:• When a client Plug-in realizes that the spreadsheet is intermediate it
uploads the entire spreadsheet on the platform. Every time an intermediate spreadsheet is updated the Plug-in performs a new upload.
• When an intermediate spreadsheet is offline, the platform runs a local spreadsheet engine in order to recalculate the exported ranges based on fresh import ranges.
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Platform architecture and operating principles (2/2)
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cipi
Computer Platform Research Center - CIPI
1. Introduction2. Requirements3. Platform architecture and operating principles4. Hierarchical Enterprise Spreadsheet Mashup5. Platform implementation6. Discussion7. Conclusion
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Agenda
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Computer Platform Research Center - CIPI
The main concepts in HESMs are: Master Organizational Unit (MOU) Contributing Organizational Units (COU) Space Master Spreadsheet Chain of spaces
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Hierarchical Enterprise Spreadsheet Mashup – HESM (1/3)
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Unit 1
“A” Contributing Org. Unit 1 (A-COU1)“A” Master spreadsheet
A-COU1 range
A-COU2 range
“A” Master Organizational Unit (A-MOU)
“A” space
Unit 2 spreadsheet
A-COU1 range
Unit 3 spreadsheet
A-COU2 range
“A” Contributing Org. Unit 2 (A-COU2)
Composition Platform
A-COU1 range A-COU2 range“A” space
Unit 3 Unit 2Unit 1 spreadsheet
B-COU1 range
“B” space“A” space
Unit 1 Unit 3
Unit 1 spreadsheet
A-COU1 range
A-COU2 range
“A” Master Organizational Unit (A-MOU)
Unit 3 spreadsheet
A-COA2 range
“A” Contributing Org. Unit 2 (A-COA2)
Composition Platform
A-COU1 range
A-COU2 range
“A” space
“B” Contributing Org. Unit 1 (B-COU1)
B-COU1 range
Unit 4
Unit 4 spreadsheet
B-COU2 range
“B” Contributing Org. Unit 2 (B-COU2)
Unit 5
“B” Master spreadsheet
B-COU2 range
“B” Master Organizational Unit (B-MOU)
B-COU1 range
B-COU2 range
“B” space
Unit 1 spreadsheet
Unit 5 spreadsheet
“A” Master spreadsheet
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Case Study: the Car Dealers Example The company is organized in an hierarchical way:
Car Dealers – CDs interact with costumers A set of CDs located in a certain area are managed by the same Area
Sales Manager - ASM A set of ASMs located in a certain region are managed by the same
Regional Sales Manager – RSM
There are different relationships among actors: CDs keep track of their sales in their own spreadsheets CDs are the COUs of the spreadsheet owned by the related ASM (i.e.,
the MOU of this relationship) ASMs keep track of the regional sales in their own spreadsheets ASMs are the COUs of the spreadsheet owned by the related RMS
(i.e., the MOU of this relationship)
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Hierarchical Enterprise Spreadsheet Mashup – HESM (2/3)
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Case Study: the Car Dealers Example (Screenshots)
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Hierarchical Enterprise Spreadsheet Mashup – HESM (3/3)
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cipi
Computer Platform Research Center - CIPI
1. Introduction2. Requirements3. Platform architecture and operating principles4. Hierarchical Enterprise Spreadsheet Mashup5. Platform implementation6. Discussion7. Conclusion
14
Agenda
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The Client Plug-in must be installed on nodes running the MS Excel software
The Plug-in and the Composition Platform communicates by means of SOAP-based APIs
The DB stores the importations, exportations, and the dependencies among spreadsheets
The Excel Server component runs the intermediate spreadsheets when needed (i.e., an update in the exporting file occurred)
The importing spreadsheets poll the Composition Server to retrieve updated data
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Platform implementation (1/2)
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Excel ServerPlug-in ClientExcel Mashup
Server
Database
Composition platform
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Sequence Diagram for an exportation involving an intermediate spreadsheet
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Platform implementation (2/2)
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cipi
Computer Platform Research Center - CIPI
1. Introduction2. Requirements3. Platform architecture and operating principles4. Hierarchical Enterprise Spreadsheet Mashup5. Platform implementation6. Discussion7. Conclusion
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Agenda
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Other Spreadsheet-based Mashup tools focus on the integration of different data sources into Spreadsheets
On the contrary we focus on the distributed and always-on composition of spreadsheets
Our approach can be seen as complementary with respect to the platforms that import different data sources and convert them to spreadsheet cells
The proposed solution aims at modeling the hierarchical structure of enterprises as shown in the Car Dealer case study
The proposed solution may take advantage of the emerging Cloud Computing paradigm in two different ways:
In a Infrastructure as a Service – IaaS scenario, the Composition Platform might run on a Virtual Machine deployed “in-the-cloud” (e.g., it might be an Amazon Machine Image – AMI deployed on the Amazon EC2 Cloud)
In a Software as a Service – SaaS scenario, the Composition Platform might rely on the Google Spreadsheet APIs which allow to manipulate spreadsheets stored “in-the-cloud”
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Discussion
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Computer Platform Research Center - CIPI
1. Introduction2. Requirements3. Platform architecture and operating principles4. Hierarchical Enterprise Spreadsheet Mashup5. Platform implementation6. Discussion7. Conclusion
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Agenda
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We designed a spreadsheet Mashup tool which allow to: Create distributed spreadsheet composition Update the spreadsheet composition automatically even if one or more
components are offline (Always-on feature) Reflect the hierarchical structure of enterprises where actors working at
different levels contribute to the creation of aggregated information
We implemented a prototype of the system presenting the following features: The client Plug-in is implemented to run on the Microsoft Office system The Client/Server communication architecture is based on SOAP messages
exchange It manages the automatic update of complex spreadsheet composition
through the execution of intermediate spreadsheets
Future works Security Versioning Spreadsheet Mashups “in-the-cloud”
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Conclusion
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Thank you for your attention