TimeCritical State Transfer during Operation of Distributed Embedded Applications One of the key challenges in dynamic reconfiguration of timecritical distributed embedded applications is state transfer: For consistency, the old component is usually blocked and its state is first extracted, then potentially transmitted and transformed and finally injected to the new component, before it can take over. However, as the technical process needs to be controlled continuously, there is technically no time for blocking. We present an approach to reconfigure stateful distributed embedded applications during operation either without or at least with bounded quality degradation. Using an extended prototype of our realtime container architecture the state transfer can be performed temporally deterministic and coordinated across nodes. By means of the reconfiguration plan the plant operator can employ strategies to keep up the system functionality for a limited time frame while specific components and messages are blocked. We describe a case study with three different reconfigurations showing the applicability of the proposed approach to various scenarios. We also discuss tradeoffs and opportunities for future improvement of our approach.

Synthesizing Mutable Configurations: Setting up Systems for Success Numerous devices, from network switches and servers to industrial control systems, can be unreliable if they are not configured properly. Even if a deviceu0027s implementation has been proven correct, it must still be configured to meet the specific functional and security requirements of its stakeholders. However, manual configuration remains labor intensive and errorprone even for experts. Automated configuration synthesis presents a promising way forward. Unfortunately, as we show, existing counterexampleguided algorithms can perform poorly if the system model allows configuration changes during execution. Yet disallowing such changes can hide significant problems, such as privilege escalation. We present a new synthesis algorithm that exploits structure inherent in statemachine models where the system configuration changes. We implement it using the Kodkod relational model finder, and show that it favorably solves a number of configurationsynthesis tasks.