The challenges of applying service orientation to the U.S. Army's live training software product line

Live Training Transformation (LT2) is the product line strategy put in place by the United States Army Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation (PEO STRI). The purpose of the LT2 product line is to provide a common set of core assets including architectures, software components, standards and processes that form the basis of all Army Live Training systems. As products consuming LT2 core assets evolve to meet the latest requirements of the military live training community, changes to the core product line architecture must also be made. Based on thorough analysis of the LT2 core capabilities and user trends toward web-enabled and mobile computing technologies, a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) strategy was identified and adopted as the objective architecture for the evolving LT2 product line. Future success of the LT2 product line now depends on the alignment of product line engineering concepts with the business and technical benefits of SOA, and to ensure that systematic reuse continues to provide substantial return-on-investment for the Army. This paper addresses the challenges of adopting SOA into an existing software product line, the unique circumstances of the LT2 SOA environment, and present a set of analysis and design considerations for the product line engineering community.