Sjaak Brinkkemper and Slinger Jansen receive 1.1 million Euros for research into organisation-specific software in de cloud

NWO has awarded a 1.1 million Euro grant for a research proposal by Prof. Sjaak Brinkkemper and Dr. Slinger Jansen (Computer Sciences) that would make extremely large software systems available via the cloud specific to an organisation. This involves a Technology Area grant as part of the NWO programme Innovative Public-Private Partnerships in ICT (IPPPI). The computer scientists from Utrecht work together with researchers from the VU Amsterdam and the firm AFAS ERP software in Leusden.

The project initiated by Brinkkemper and Jansen is known by its acronym AMUSE: Adaptable Model-driven and User-specific Software Ecosystems. The goal of AMUSE is to develop technologies to share the code for extremely large software systems among user organisations on heterogeneous servers in various data centres, while still allowing for organisation-specific adjustments.

Important and complex

This is important, because extremely large software systems are increasingly being installed in the cloud, so several organisations can work with a single version of the software simultaneously. The disadvantage to this is that it makes it much more complex to offer exclusive organisation-specific adjustments.

SAP and the 38 hour work week

“One example of such as system is SAP”, explains Brinkkemper, Professor of Software Production. “We have a 38 hour work week, so we want our work schedule to reflect a standard 38-hour week. Unfortunately, an organisation-specific adjustment like that is very complex for the supplier, because the software is constantly being updated, and each update has to take those adjustments into consideration.”   

More information about this round of IPPPI is available on the NWO website.