The Software Systems Group is concerned with the design, modelling, simulation and construction of mission-critical systems that challenge the states-of-the-art in both software engineering and performance engineering. Such systems are fundamentally composed of physically distributed component sub-systems, and are characterised by large data spaces and high compute needs, with associated complex interactions between the components.

The Software Engineering sub-group investigates:

(i) novel approaches to software development, e.g. component-based software development, using symmetry and symmetry-breaking in software design, and using patterns for analysis, design, implementation and evolution of software systems, with a view to achieving the benefits of high productivity, as well as reliable, reusable, evolvable and maintainable software;

(ii) software engineering tools, including programming languages and their IDEs; and

(iii) novel applications , such as persistent object stores, computer aided/assisted/managed teaching and learning environments, and novel database technologies.

The Centre for Novel Computing is an interdisciplinary research centre with a mission to develop application-oriented techniques and tools that facilitate development of large-scale high-performance computational models for all manner of disciplines. Much of its work is associated with Computational Science and Engineering, but there is increasing interest from the commercial sector and areas of the social sciences. Key current themes include: dealing with dynamic, heterogeneous hardware platforms; high-performance data mining and decision support based on large datasets; the coupling together of (scientific) models (e.g. integrated earth system modelling, multiscale systems modelling); and performance control of complex, distributed, component-based software systems. There is also a long-term interest in developing high-abstraction programming techniques (such as object oriented and aspect oriented methodologies) for high-performance computing.