Context and Motivation

Model Driven Engineering (MDE) elevates models to first class artefacts of the software development process. Numerous powerful tools exist to support MDE, including for constructing models and managing them (e.g., via transformation, code generation, merging), though numerous challenges and difficulties arrive in adopting and deploying the tools. MDE principles, practices and tools are also becoming more widely used in industrial scenarios. Many of these scenarios are traditional IT development (e.g., focusing on code generation), and emphasis on novel or evolving deployment platforms has yet to be seen.

Cloud computing is a computational model in which applications, data, and IT resources are provided as services to users over the Internet. Cloud computing exploits distributed computers to provide on-demand resources and services over a network (usually the Internet) with the scale and reliability of a data centre. There are different types of clouds; organizations can provide hardware for clouds internally (internal clouds), or a third party can provide it externally (hosted clouds). A cloud might be restricted to a single organization or group (private clouds), available to the general public over the Internet (public clouds), or shared by multiple groups or organizations (hybrid clouds).

Cloud computing is enormously promising in terms of providing scalable and elastic infrastructure for applications; MDE is enormously promising in terms of automating tedious or error prone parts of systems engineering. There is potential in identifying synergies between MDE and cloud computing; this is the focus of the workshop.
Workshop Goals

We aim to bring together researchers and practitioners working in MDE or cloud computing, who are interested in identifying, developing or building on existing synergies. We aim to identify opportunities for using MDE to support the development of cloud-based applications (MDE for the cloud), as well as opportunities for using cloud infrastructure to enable MDE in new and novel ways (MDE in the cloud).
We also are interested in novel results of adoption of MDE in cloud-related domains, as well as work-in-progress or experience reports, that provide insight into early adoption of MDE for building cloud-based applications, or in terms of deploying MDE tools and infrastructure on ‘the cloud’.
Topics of Interest

Metamodels and novel domain-specific languages to support development of cloud-based applications.
Model transformation for cloud-based applications.
Model-to-text transformations for specific cloud platforms.
Novel applications of MDE enabled by use of cloud platforms.
Approaches to enabling “modelling as a service”.
Semantic annotation techniques and descriptions of modelling services.
Approaches for modelling service matching.
Scalability issues for MDE in the cloud.
Methods and experience reports focusing on model-based interoperability between cloud platforms/vendors.
Cloud-specific development scenarios enabled by or enriched by use of MDE.
Specific non-functional cloud concerns (e.g., security, information governance) that may be addressed by MDE principles or practices.
Case studies and experience reports.
Position statements setting a research agenda for MDE in/for the cloud.

Important Dates

Full paper submission: April 16, 2012
Notification of acceptance: May 14, 2012
Camera ready version: June 3, 2012
Workshop: July 2-3, 2012 (exact date to be decided)

Workshop Format

Planned duration of the workshop is one day. The workshop will include a keynote talk, research paper presentations, position statement presentations, and time for discussion amongst attendees. Workshop participants will be asked to read the papers before the workshop and prepare a list of questions to ask at the workshop, in order to achieve lively interactions. After each presentation, enough time will be allotted for discussion. In addition, the last afternoon session will be reserved for summary discussion of issues identified by the participants during the presentations. The workshop will close with a wrap-up discussion that will formulate the workshop’s conclusions, identify open issues, and outline future directions of work.
Selection Process

All submissions will be formally evaluated by three reviewers; different review criteria will be used for research/technical submissions versus position statements. The former will be reviewed using normal scientific criteria (novelty, alignment with workshop call, evaluation, ability to generate discussion). The latter will be evaluated in terms of likelihood of sparking heated debate/discussion at the workshop.
Submission Format

All contributions must be submitted in Springer’s LNCS format.

Research/technical papers should not exceed 10 pages, including all text, references, appendices and figures.
Position statements should not exceed 5 pages.

Paper submissions will be made electronically via the ECMFA workshop submission web page, using the Easychair service.

All submissions must be original work and must not have been previously published, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere. At least one author of each accepted paper should register for the event and participate fully in the workshop.
Publication of Accepted Papers

Accepted papers will be part of the ECMFA’12 general workshop publication plans, and will also be published as CEUR proceedings. Extended versions of the highest quality submissions will be advocated for inclusion in a special issue of the Journal of Object Technology (JOT).