Product Line Systems Program

The Product Line Systems (PLS) Program works in the areas of software architecture, software product lines, and component technology. Its goal is to enable widespread product line practice through architecture-based development. Architecture serves as the blueprint for both the system and the project developing it: architecture can be used early in projects to determine whether a design approach will yield an acceptable system, and it can be used after a system is deployed to understand, maintain, and reuse parts of the system. System qualities such as performance, modifiability, and security depend on a unified architectural vision.

Product lines save time and money: systems that use the same components and offer the same features require less time for planning and rework, have lower production costs, and require fewer staff members. Because the shared components of a product line are reused from system to system (rather than built from scratch every time), the systems in software product lines are also highly reliable.

PLS Initiatives

The work of the SEI’s PLS Program is shaped by three technical initiatives¹:

The Product Line Practice Initiative guides organizations away from traditional one-at-a-time system development and towards the systematic large-scale reuse paradigm of product lines. It focuses on selecting, re-fining, and establishing technical practices of demonstrated effectiveness for exploiting commonalities that exist across software systems in particular domains. This initiative is codifying and disseminating successful software product line practices to lower the cost of adoption for all organizations.

The Software Architecture Technology Initiative is aimed at establishing and making available proven techniques for predicting the impact of software architecture decisions on product quality attributes such as performance, reliability, modifiability, and usability. This includes technology and validated methods to help organizations define, evaluate, and document software architectures, as well as reconstruct architectures from source code.

The Predictable Assembly from Certifiable Components Initiative is aimed at developing repeatable techniques for predicting properties of assemblies of components before the components are actually developed or purchased. Using a combination of empirical and formal reasoning, it seeks to ensure that the builders of systems can select software components on the basis of their predicted runtime behavior within specific assemblies and therefore predict the runtime behavior of those assemblies or systems.

Curriculum

The Product Line Systems Program is also proud to showcase its software architecture and software product line curriculums. The Software Architecture Curriculum is based on decades of experience architecting software-intensive systems and supported by four widely-acclaimed practitioner books in the SEI Addison-Wesley Series. This collection of six courses equips software professionals with state-of-the-art practices so they can efficiently design software-intensive systems that meet their intended business and quality goals.

The Software Product Line Curriculum is based on extensive SEI and community experience in developing, acquiring, and fielding software product lines. The curriculum is supported by a widely acclaimed practitioner book in the SEI Addison-Wesley Series as well as leading-edge reports, case studies, and product line artifacts. The collection of five courses equips software professionals with state-of-the-art practices so they can efficiently use proven product line practices to achieve their strategic reuse and other business goals.

Additional Program Information

1. Initiatives are the names of the sponsored projects under which specific work at the SEI is carried out.