Web services-based tool-integration in the ETI platform

In this paper we present dETI, the next generation of the Electronic Tool Integration (ETI) platform, an open platform for the interactive experimentation with and coordination of heterogeneous software tools via the internet. Our redesign, which is based on the experience gained while running the ETI platform since 1997, focusses on the tool integration process, which clearly marked the bottleneck for the wide acceptance of the ETI platform on the side of an important group of users: the tool providers. The new integration approach makes use of standard Web Services technology, which perfectly fits in the overall ETI architecture. Our approach realizes a clear separation of concerns, which overcomes all the previously observed obstacles by (i) decoupling the integration tasks of the tool providers and the ETI team, (ii) pulling the ETI team out of the upgrading and maintenance loop and (iii) handing the upgrading and access control over to the tool providers. This guarantees the scalability in the number of tools available within ETI, and addresses the flexibility concerns of the tool providers.