Iris Groher

Product Line Implementation using Aspect-Oriented and Model-Driven Software Development

Software product line engineering aims to reduce development time, effort, cost, and complexity by taking advantage of the commonality within a portfolio of similar products. The effectiveness of a software product line approach directly depends on how well feature variability within the portfolio is implemented and managed throughout the development lifecycle, from early analysis through maintenance and evolution. This paper presents an approach that facilitates variability implementation, management and tracing by integrating model-driven and aspect-oriented software development. Features are separated in models and composed by aspect-oriented composition techniques on model level. Model transformations support the transition from problem to solution domain. Aspect-oriented techniques enable the explicit expression and modularization of variability on model, code, and template level The presented concepts are illustrated with a case study of a home automation system.

XWeave: models and aspects in concert

Model-driven software development improves the way software is developed by capturing key features of the system in models which are developed and refined as the system is created. During the systems lifecycle models are combined and transformed between different levels of abstraction and viewpoints. Aspect-oriented techniques improve software development by providing modularization constructs for the encapsulation of crosscutting concerns. Existing research has already investigated many ways of combining the two paradigms. This paper contributes by presenting XWeave, a model weaver that supports weaving of both models and meta models. XWeave supports the composition of different architectural viewpoints and eases model evolution. Furthermore, the tool plays an important role in software product line engineering, as variable parts of architectural models can be woven according to some product configuration. The concepts are illustrated with an example of a home automation system.

Software ecosystems vs. natural ecosystems: learning from the ingenious mind of nature

The use of the term ecosystem in the context of extensible software platforms and third-party developers or user communities has made us ponder about the similarities between software ecosystems and natural ecosystems. We therefore compare software ecosystems and natural ecosystems to present an agenda for further research by analyzing some key characteristics of both types of ecosystems. We discuss the regulatory factors and mechanisms existing in nature, and then deduce key challenges that need to be dealt with, in order to achieve healthy operation of software ecosystems.

Aspect-Oriented Model-Driven Software Product Line Engineering

Software product line engineering aims to reduce development time, effort, cost, and complexity by taking advantage of the commonality within a portfolio of similar products. The effectiveness of a software product line approach directly depends on how well feature variability within the portfolio is implemented and managed throughout the development lifecycle, from early analysis through maintenance and evolution. This article presents an approach that facilitates variability implementation, management, and tracing by integrating model-driven and aspect-oriented software development. Features are separated in models and composed of aspect-oriented composition techniques on model level. Model transformations support the transition from problem to solution space models. Aspect-oriented techniques enable the explicit expression and modularization of variability on model, template, and code level. The presented concepts are illustrated with a case study of a home automation system.

Incremental consistency checking of dynamic constraints

Software design models are routinely adapted to domains, companies, and applications. This requires customizable consistency checkers that allow engineers to dynamically adapt model constraints. To benefit from quick design feedback, such consistency checkers should evaluate the consistency of such changeable constraints incrementally with design changes. This paper presents such a freely customizable, incremental consistency checker. We demonstrate that constraints can be defined and re-defined at will. And we demonstrate that its performance is instant for many kinds of constraints without manual annotations or restrictions on the constraint language used. Our approach supports both model and meta-model constraints and was evaluated on over 20 software models and 24 types of constraints. It is fully automated and integrated into the IBM Rational Software Modeler tool.

Transitioning to a software product family approach - challenges and best practices

This paper explains the challenges we experienced when introducing a software product family approach in Siemens business groups. Our vision is a complete and easily accessible cookbook with advice on how to start such an approach. In a first attempt, we identified a collection of more or less successful best practices. On the suggestions and the open questions we are going to present in this paper, we search validation by practitioners in the field.

Integrating Variability Management and Software Architecture

Effective variability support has become an important attribute of modern software development practices. Organizations show an increasing interest in the development of software applications using software platforms, reusable components, and mass customization. Even though many variability management tools exist, an approach that integrates support for variability management (e.g. features, decisions, variation points, and variants) directly into architecture models is still missing. Making variability concepts an integral part of architecture models has many benefits. Variability management and architecture development can be integrated into one consistent information model and development environment supporting full traceability of architectural artifacts (e.g. requirements, features, components) on all levels of the development lifecycle. In this paper we show how we integrated orthogonal variability modeling and feature modeling into LISA, an approach and toolkit for architecture management and analysis. Variability management is no longer a separate activity but an integral part of the architecture development lifecycle.

CASE Tool Support for Variability Management in Software Product Lines

Software product lines (SPL) aim at reducing time-to-market and increasing software quality through extensive, planned reuse of artifacts. An essential activity in SPL is variability management, i.e., defining and managing commonality and variability among member products. Due to the large scale and complexity of todays software-intensive systems, variability management has become increasingly complex to conduct. Accordingly, tool support for variability management has been gathering increasing momentum over the last few years and can be considered a key success factor for developing and maintaining SPLs. While several studies have already been conducted on variability management, none of these analyzed the available tool support in detail. In this work, we report on a survey in which we analyzed 37 existing variability management tools identified using a systematic literature review to understand the tools’ characteristics, maturity, and the challenges in the field. We conclude that while most studies on variability management tools provide a good motivation and description of the research context and challenges, they often lack empirical data to support their claims and findings. It was also found that quality attributes important for the practical use of tools such as usability, integration, scalability, and performance were out of scope for most studies.

Variability Modelling throughout the Product Line Lifecycle

This paper summarizes our experience with introducing feature modelling into several product lines within Siemens. Feature models are used for solving various tasks in the product line lifecycle, starting with scoping the reusable asset base up to support for actual product configuration. Using feature models as primary artefacts for managing variability early in the lifecycle, we could improve the efficiency and transparency of scoping activities considerably and made the development efforts way easier to schedule. On the other end of the lifecycle, feature models lowered the engineering efforts in solution business in supporting product configuration and instantiation.

A Fresh Look at Codification Approaches for SAKM: A Systematic Literature Review

The last 10 years have seen a rise of approaches for Software Architecture Knowledge Management (SAKM), with a focus on codification of architecture knowledge. Still there is no common meta-model for describing architectural knowledge nor is there a common terminology for the main concepts of such a model. While this might lead to the question whether such a common meta-model is even possible, it is certainly desirable. We decided to tackle this question based on the results of 10 years of research in this area. As part of a systematic literature survey we analyzed and compared model-based approaches for SAKM. Specifically we analyzed the models of SAKM approaches with the highest-rated evidence for different knowledge management activities like capturing, maintaining, reuse, sharing, and using. As a result we identified important aims and elements of proven SAKM approaches, which could be used as a driver for the next generation of AK codification approaches.