Modelling the future of software
Software systems need to be configured, deployed and upgraded during their lifetime to improve functionality and performance, and to repair glitches. The tricky part involves upgrading them without interrupting the services they are delivering to the end user. This is one of the topics Ferhat Khendek, Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is working on with his team of researchers.
“Say you are using Facebook on your cell phone. The servers behind that may be experiencing faults, or failures. They may also be going through software upgrades. You should not be noticing these failures or these upgrades happening,” Khendek explains. “That’s the whole aim of our work.”
Khendek has been awarded a prestigious five-year (Senior) NSERC/Ericsson Industrial Research Chair (IRC) in Model Based Software Management (2011-16). The IRC brings $300,000 per year to Concordia in support of the Chair, which Khendek says will allow him to significantly increase his lab’s manpower and output. “When I first partnered with Ericsson in 1998, I started with one student, and now, every year, we are going to have eight students, two post-doctoral fellows, and one research professional.”
Concordia will also have to hire another professor, since NSERC stipulates that every university that receives an Industrial Research Chair must increase its research capacity by creating a new tenured or tenure-track faculty position.
Over the past decade, Khendek has held three consecutive NSERC-funded Collaborative Research and Development projects with Ericsson Canada totalling over $1.2 million in research funds, and has established a strong link between the university and the telecommunications giant. “Together, we have significantly advanced knowledge in the area of model-based software development and service engineering,” the professor says.
Just last month, the Association pour le développement de la recherche et de l’innovation du Québec (ADRIQ) awarded its technological partnership prize jointly to Concordia University and Ericsson in honour of Khendek’s work.
While the technological marketplace stands to benefit from Concordia’s partnership with Ericsson, Khendek says the added value for Concordia’s graduate students involved in the research is also significant.
“Participating students will gain an exceptional level of experience at both Concordia and Ericsson's facilities so that they may enter the workforce with the skills required to strengthen the position of Canadian industry in the global market.” More than 10 Concordia graduate students who have been involved in these collaborations are already working as professional engineers with Ericsson.
Concordia’s outgoing Vice-President, Research and Graduate Studies, Louise Dandurand praised Khendek for bringing the support of a major tech player to Concordia, and for earning NSERC’s most prestigious Industrial Research Chair. “Dr. Khendek is one of Canada’s most prominent researchers in the area of software and telecommunication engineering and we are very excited to see his research collaboration with industry develop into a long-term partnership in the form of an IRC program.”
Related links:
• NSERC
• Concordia Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science
• “Partnership between Concordia and Ericsson” — NOW, November 29
• “Research in Action” — Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Quarterly, Winter 2011