An Overview of Dynamic Software Product Line Architectures and Techniques: Observations from Research and Industry

Abstract

Over the last two decades, software product lines have been used successfully in industry for buildingfamilies of systems of related products, maximizing reuse, and exploiting their variable and configurableoptions. In a changing world, modern software demands more and more adaptive features, many ofthem performed dynamically, and the requirements on the software architecture to support adapta-tion capabilities of systems are increasing in importance. Today, many embedded system families andapplication domains such as ecosystems, service-based applications, and self-adaptive systems demandruntime capabilities for flexible adaptation, reconfiguration, and post-deployment activities. However,as traditional software product line architectures fail to provide mechanisms for runtime adaptation andbehavior of products, there is a shift toward designing more dynamic software architectures and buildingmore adaptable software able to handle autonomous decision-making, according to varying conditions.Recent development approaches such as Dynamic Software Product Lines (DSPLs) attempt to face thechallenges of the dynamic conditions of such systems but the state of these solution architectures isstill immature. In order to provide a more comprehensive treatment of DSPL models and their solutionarchitectures, in this research work we provide an overview of the state of the art and current techniquesthat, partially, attempt to face the many challenges of runtime variability mechanisms in the context ofDynamic Software Product Lines. We also provide an integrated view of the challenges and solutions thatare necessary to support runtime variability mechanisms in DSPL models and software architectures.