Evolutionary Service-Oriented Architecture, PhD Studentship : UK

EPSRC/BAE Systems PhD Studentship in Evolutionary Service-Oriented Architecture, University of Leeds, UK

EPSRC/BAE Systems PhD Studentship: Evolutionary Service-Oriented Architecture

School: Computing, University of Leeds.
Funding Type: EPSRC/BAE Systems.
Award type: Studentship package of maintenance and fees.
Number of Awards: 1.
Entry Requirements: BSc 2(i) level (or equivalent) background in Computer Science, Software Engineering or other relevant discipline.
Supervisor Name: Professor Jie Xu.
Value: £12,940 (Tax Free) per annum maintenance allowance, fees, and an additional £6000 per annum.
Application deadline: 31st December 2008.

Project Description: This studentship will be linked to the NECTISE work on evolutionary architectures and contribute to the understanding of architectural requirements in the pursuit of robust, dependable solutions over the development cycles of distributed systems. The objectives of this studentship are:

• to develop an evolutionary service-oriented model for the provision of dependable and sustainable capability,
• to relate the model to realistic systems for the provision of such capability, and
• to evaluate the performance of this model through mathematical analysis and simulations.

This project will focus on evolutionary methods for managing service development, service discovery and service integration in a critical and dynamic environment. This will include exploring novel architectures that can adapt to changes due to, for example: faults; customer need; technology developments and obsolescence. In this doctoral programme, mathematical and simulation-based evaluations will be used to scrutinize new models of service integration and discovery to deliver dependable capability. Evaluation areas will include optimization of resources, architecture agility, managing dynamic availability and minimizing the impact on affordability.

The studentship is part of the EPSRC/BAE Systems funded research project in system engineering addressing the question: “Are you prepared for NEC (Network Enabled Capability)?” The NECTISE (Network Enabled Capability Through Innovative Systems Engineering) project is a five and half year research endeavour involving the Universities of: Loughborough, Bath, Cambridge, Cranfield, Leeds, Leicester, Manchester, Queen’s Belfast, Strathclyde, and York, with a value of around £8.4M. The University of Leeds is one of the four academic leaders for the entire programme, leading research activities on System Architectures and contributing to the development of Through Life System Management. This post will be linked with the Systems Architecture topic group.

This project is appropriate for a software engineering graduate with a strong validation and verification background or a computer science graduate with a strong programming background. The student will join the Distributed Systems and Services research group located within the School of Computing at the University of Leeds (see http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/distsys/).

The project will provide an opportunity for the successful candidate to attend national and international conferences and provides a studentship package of £18000 maintenance and fees. The successful candidate will be also encouraged to contribute towards the publication of work and to define opportunities within the project.

The successful candidate should fulfill the eligibility criteria for EPSRC funding through UK/EU nationality and residency status (See http://www.epsrc.ac.uk) and is therefore only open to UK and EU students.

For further details please contact Dr. Duncan Russell (duncanr@comp.leeds.ac.uk). Interested candidates should send a letter of application and a detailed CV with the names and addresses of three referees to:

Dr. Duncan Russell
Senior Research Fellow
Distributed Systems & Services group
School of Computing
University of Leeds
LS2 9JT
Tel: +44 (0) 113 3431707
Email: duncanr@comp.leeds.ac.uk

Applications will be considered up to 31st December 2008. Early applications will be considered immediately.