Engineering self-adaptive systems and dynamic software product line

Abstract

Self-adaptive systems are a class of software applications, which are able to dynamically transform their internal structure and hence their behavior in response to internal or external stimuli. The transformation may provide the basis for new functionalities or improve or maintain non-functional properties in order to match the application better to its operational requirements and standards. Software Product Line Engineering has rich methods and techniques in variability modeling and management which is one of the main issues in developing self-adaptive systems. Dynamic software product lines (DSPL) have been proposed to exploit the knowledge acquired in SPLE to develop self-adaptive software systems. In this tutorial, we portray the problem of developing self-adaptive systems. Then we investigate how the idea of dynamic software product line could help to deal with the challenges that we face in developing efficient self-adaptive software. We also offer insight into the different approaches that use dynamic software product line engineering for developing self-adaptive systems focusing on practical approaches by showing how the approaches are applied to real case studies and also methods for evaluating these approaches. This tutorial also discuss how DSPL could be used some relevant areas to self-adaptive systems and challenges which still exist in the area.