Archimedes / Managing product-line software architectures

Introduction

A product-line architecture (PLA) is an architecture for a family of software products sharing similar structure and functionality. Usually a PLA consists of a product platform and a set of components, to be reused in several independently distributed products. A PLA aims at flexibility, trying to provide support for individual products without losing its generality. It promotes software reuse by allowing several products to share both code and design. This in turn leads to shortened time-to-market, without sacrificing the quality of the products.

There is relatively little knowledge about the design process for a PLA. The general purpose of the project is to increase the understanding of the significance of software architectures as a means to rationalize software production. In particular, the project studies product-line architectures from an industrial perspective, providing practically motivated methodological support for PLAs. A central aim of the project is to transfer knowledge about real, practical PLAs from industry to academia, and knowledge about existing methodological support for PLAs from academia to the industry.

The project is funded by Tekes for 2001-2003. Industrial partners are Almare, Done, ioCloud, Ionific, Nokia Mobile Phones, Nokia Networks, Profit, and Plustech.