SPLReePlan - Automated Support for Software Product Line Reengineering Planning

Software Product Lines (SPL) adoption can affect several aspects of an organization and it involves significant investment and risk. This way, SPL risk management is a crucial activity of SPL adoption. This study aims to identify SPL risks during the scoping and requirement disciplines to provide information to better understand risk management in SPL. In order to achieve the previous stated goal, a case study research was applied in an industrial project in the medical information management domain. Using the captured risks, a classification scheme was built and risk mitigation strategies were identified. We spent five months, totaling 79 hours, performing risk management (RM) in the scoping discipline and twelve months, totaling 148 hours, performing RM on the requirements discipline. We identified 32 risks during the scoping discipline and 20 risks during the requirements discipline, 14 risks occurred in both disciplines. Some identified risks are not particular to SPL development, however, they have their impact increased due to the SPL characteristic. All the study results and lessons learned are useful for all project managers and researchers who are considering the introduction of SPL risk management in industry or academia.

Software product line adoption is a challenging task in software development organisations. There are some reports in the literature of how software product line engineering has been adopted in several companies using different variability management techniques and patterns. However, to the best of our knowledge, there are no empirical reports on how variability management is handled in companies that do not know about software product line methods and tools. In this paper we present an experience report observing variability management practices in a software development company that was unaware of software product line approaches. We briefly report how variability management is performed in different areas ranging from business architecture to software assets management. From the observation we report some open research opportunities for the future and foster further similar and more structured empirical studies on unaware software product line companies.

Identifying and extracting parts of a system's implementation for reuse is an important task for re-engineering system variants into Software Product Lines (SPLs). An SPL is an approach that enables systematic reuse of existing assets across related product variants. The re-engineering process to adopt an SPL from a set of individual variants starts with the location of features and their implementation, to be extracted and migrated into an SPL and reused in new variants. Therefore, feature location is of fundamental importance to the success in the adoption of SPLs. Despite its importance, existing feature location techniques struggle with huge, complex, and numerous system artifacts. This is the scenario of ArgoUML-SPL, which stands out as the most used case study for the validation of feature location approaches. In this paper we use an automated feature location technique and apply it to the ArgoUML feature location challenge posed.

Software product line (SPL) scoping aids companies to define the boundaries of their resources such as products, domains, and assets, the target of reuse tasks scoping technical and organizational aspects. As scoping guides the management of the resources in SPL development, it becomes one of the core activities in this process. We can find in the literature several approaches on this topic, proposing techniques and methodologies to be applicable in different organizational scenarios. However, no work comprehensively reviews such approaches and describes the advances in state of the art in the last years. In this context, we look into identifying, analyzing, and extracting detailed characteristics from SPL scoping proposals found in the literature. These characteristics allowed us to compare these approaches, reason about their applicability, and identify existing limitations and research opportunities. Thus, we conducted a systematic literature review alongside snowballing, following a well-defined protocol to retrieve, classify and extract information from the literature. We analyzed a total of 58 studies, identifying 41 different approaches in the field, highlighting their similarities and differences, and establishing a generic scoping process. Furthermore, we discuss research opportunities in the SPL scoping field.

Trusted Product Lines

New customers often require custom features of a successfully marketed product. As the number of variants grow, new challenges arise in the maintenance and evolution activities. Software product line (SPL) architecture is a timely answer to these challenges. The SPL adoption however is a large one time investment that affects both technical and organizational issues. From the program code point of view, the extractive approach is appropriate when there are already several product variants. Analyzing the feature structure, the differences and commonalities of the variants lead to the new common architecture. In this work in progress paper we report initial experiments of feature extraction from a set of product variants written in the Magic fourth generation language (4GL). Since existing approaches are mostly designed for mainstream languages, we adapted and reused reverse engineering approaches to the 4GL environment. We followed a semi-automatic feature extraction method, where the higher level features are provided by domain experts. These features are then linked to the internal structure of Magic applications using a textual similarity (IR-based) method. We demonstrate the feasibility of 4GL feature extraction method and validate it on two variants of a real life logistical system each consisting of more than 2000 Magic programs.

SIGTel is a SME aimed at developing WebGIS application. It has a portfolio of products which are a combination of Open GIS components and its own developed components. Although most of these products share a common architecture and common features, they have to be customized according to the user requirements. Now, this SME is working at the improvement of the software development process by introducing a Software Product Line (SPL) approach to automate the process of development and deployment based on that common architecture, as well as reduce time to market and improve quality. The first step has been taken, and KobrA approach has been chosen as the basic methodology to start working. Now, the on-going work is to perform the Domain Engineering, being the management of variability one of the first issues to be resolved. Here, we present a combination of KobrA containment tree and Orthogonal Variation Model (OVM), as the selected alternative to model the variability by using the architecture of our WebGIS SPL.

Beyond the main purpose of Open Source Software (OSS) to open industrial Provide and personal solutions, pieces of OSS are Also the subject of many research efforts. In this work we focus on OSS usage the case study subjects in the context of extractive adoption of software product lines. This field of research is related to re-engineering the existing system towards more variants systematic reuse for the creation and management of a family of products. By analyzing the catalog of case studies, We provide an overview and a discussion of the current research state-of-the-practice of OSS usage across the different phases of the process re-engineering. We complement this work with the identification of available OSS tools to support this process to show the conclusion, the healthy contribution que OSS communities are directly or Indirectly making to this active research field.

A systematic mapping study on software product line evolution: From legacy system reengineering to product line refactoring

Software Product Line (SPL) development is a new approach to software engineering that aims at the development of a whole range of products. One of the problems which hinders the adoption of that approach is related with the management of the products of the line. Additionally, the scope of a software product line is determined by the bounds of the capabilities provided by the collection of products in the product line. This introduces new challenges related to the scope problem. One of the main three different forms of scoping is the Product Portfolio Scoping (PPS). PPS aims at defining the products that should be developed as well as their key features. While this has an impact on the actual reuse opportunities, it is usually driven from marketing aspects. Defining a product portfolio by considering costumers satisfaction and cost aspects is a NP-hard problem. This work presents a hybrid approach, which combines fuzzy inference systems and the multi-objective metaheuristics NSGAII to support product management by generating portfolios of products, based in segments of users and the development cost of the assets of the SPL. Fuzzy inference systems are used to generate development cost of an asset by using coupling, number of code lines and cyclomatic complexity and also to estimate the quality of the products generated by the optimization module of our approach. The NSGA-II metaheuristic is used to search for products minimizing the cost and maximizing the relevance of the candidate products. The results show that the proposed approach is effective in proposing the best products in terms of relevance and cost of the assets.

Existing product requirements form a rich source for domain requirements analysis in software product lines (SPLs). Most existing domain analysis techniques depend on domain experts’ experience and manual operation to identify the commonalities and variabilities of product requirements. They often demand a high level of manual effort and a large up-front investment, which can present a prohibitive barrier for SPL adoption. This study proposes a model-driven approach to semi-automatically derive domain functional requirements (DFRs) from product functional requirements (PFRs). Based on the linguistic characterisation of a domain's action-oriented concerns, the authors apply Fillmore's semantic framework to functional requirements and define metamodels for PFRs and DFRs. Functional requirements of existing products are constructed as corresponding PFR models. Following the proposed merging and refinement rules, the authors approach automates the transformation from PFR models into DFR models by merging the same or similar PFRs and analysing their commonality and variability. The resulting DFR models can serve as an initial basis of the SPL. The authors demonstrate the authors approach using an example of a home security system (HSS) SPL and give a preliminary evaluation. The authors approach provides a rigorous model-based support for DFRs development and complements existing domain analysis techniques with less time and effort.

In today’s competitive business environment, it is extremely important to offer customers exactly the products they want. Software product lines have the potential to enable companies to offer a large variety of products while still being able to manage the complexity caused by this increased number of products. But offering a large range of variants does not necessarily mean increased profits, as many manufacturing companies had to notice in the early 1990ies. The task of Product Portfolio Planning is the development of a product portfolio that optimally satisfies customer demands and at the same time restricts the number of products offered. Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a well-known and successfully used Quality Management method that can help companies to identify true customer needs and the features needed to fulfil these needs. This paper demonstrates how QFD can be used for Product Portfolio Planning, thus offering potentially great benefits.

A Predictive Model of Contractor Financial Effort in Transport Infrastructure Projects

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.

Changbei is a tight onshore gas field located in North Shaanxi Province, Ordos Basin, China. Since 1999 Changbei has been produced by sixteen vertical hydraulically fractured wells through a 'Trial Production Operation' (TPO) facility. Shell signed a revised development PSC with PetroChina in 2005 and is the first IOC having production operation in the Ordos Basin, the second largest Basin in China. The main reservoir is a thin and fairly complex braided channel sandstone formation with low 5% average porosity, low 0.7mD average permeability and high >85% Net to Gross. Potential heterogeneities were identified by well test analysis. Presently these heterogeneities cannot be accurately predicted by geological and seismic interpretation. For the Changbei field development, a dual lateral well with two 2000m horizontal sections has been selected. Some 50 wells will be drilled from 3-well clusters over a period of 9-years, this allows continuous subsurface learning during development. Two years ramp up has been planned, reaching plateau production of 3bcm/a (290mmscf/d) in 2008 to help fulfill strongly increasing gas demand from Beijing1. Development drilling commenced August 2005 and is now a three rig operation. As of end June, five wells have been completed, of which four are tested and connected to the processing facility. The drilling outcomes have broken records on horizontal reservoir section length for onshore development in China and for the highest single gas well productivity in the Ordos Basin. During this initial phase of development, a number of lessons have been learned on both technical (for example reservoir heterogeneity and borehole stability) and organizational aspects (building a drilling operation in China from scratch, managing HSE in a different culture)2. After a summary of the development concept selection and the status of the project execution, this paper provides some of the learnings so far and how they have been used to further improve project delivery with a focus on technical aspects. Introduction A PSC was signed between PetroChina and Shell in 1999 to develop the Changbei Gas Field, this was followed by an extensive evaluation and appraisal period of two years preparing a development plan. Appraisal activities carried out included fracturing of existing and newly drilled vertical wells and drilling/testing of horizontal wells to allow a development well concept to be selected. A joint working group of both parties started to optimize the field development concept in 2004 and identified costs saving potential and generated plans to get this tight gas field developed, fulfilling both company's economic requirements. In 2005, a modified PSC was signed between PetroChina and Shell and a final investment decision was made in April 2005. Changbei tight gas development is the largest onshore cooperation between an IOC and one of the three local oil majors in China in terms of investment and development scale. As well as difficult reservoir conditions Shell as field operator, has to overcome challenges specific to the local environment, for example technology and equipment availability, local contractor competence, managing community relations and above all to execute the project successfully with a high HSE standard. The traditional way of developing Ordos Basin gas fields is vertical wells with propped hydraulic fractures. The selected development concept for Changbei of horizontal/dual-lateral wells with 2000m for each lateral leg is theoretically the most attractive option. However this needs to be practically proved. Field history3 Exploration drilling in the Changbei Block started in 1991. First small scale gas production, supplying local community, from the clastic reservoir is recorded in 1995. Seismic was then used to predict the lateral continuity of the reservoir sand body and reservoir boundary (Incised Valley Boundary), leading to an extensive exploration campaign between 1996–1997, culminating in a successful well-test with the calculated combined well AOF of 0.8MMscm/d or 28MMscf/d post hydraulic fracturing.