This document defines a software product line as a set of software systems that share common features and core assets to satisfy the needs of a particular market segment. The goals of a product line are to reduce costs, improve delivery time, and improve quality through reuse. A product line consists of multiple related systems that share a common architecture and variability. It structures products through a core set of shared assets. The document discusses identifying and supporting variation points in a product line architecture and evaluating the architecture. It also covers adoption strategies, product line growth models, evolving a product line over time, and the benefits of reduced costs, improved time to market, higher quality, and more.

1. Dr. Himanshu Hora
SRMS College of Engg. & Tech., Bareilly
INDIA

2. Definition
A set of software-intensive system sharing a
common, managed set of features that satisfy the
specific needs of particular market segment or
mission and that are developed from a common set
of core assets in a prescribed way.

3. Introduction
 A product line consists of :
 multiple systems, which have the same architecture and
share common core assets
 variability among systems
 The three main goals of a software product line are
to reduce cost, improve delivery time, and improve
quality
 It is a family of products designed to take
advantage of their common aspects and predicted
variabilities

4. Introduction Contd..
Market strategy/
Application domain
Architecture
Components
concern to
share an
are built from
is satisfied by
used to structure
Products
CORE
ASSETS
Product lines
take economic advantage of commonality
bound variability

5. Things which Make Software
Product Line Work
 Reuse of followings:
 Requirements
 Architectural design
 Elements
 Modeling and analysis
 Testing
 Project planning
 Processes, methods and tools
 People
 Exemplar systems
 Defect elimination

6. Scoping
 A product’s line scope is statement about what
systems an organization is willing to build as a
part of its line
 Represents the organization’s best prediction
about what products it will be asked to build in
future
 Lack of commonalities can be a problem in
defining the scope

7. Architectures for Product Lines
 A product line architecture captures the
architectures of many related products
simultaneously
 Generally employs explicit variation points in the
architecture indicating where design decisions
may diverge from product to product
 A product line architect needs to consider 3 things:
 Identifying variation points
 Supporting variation points
 Evaluating the architecture for product line suitability

8. Identifying Variation Points
• Variations discovered during requirement process :
 Features, user interface, qualities, and target markets
• Variations points discovered during architecture design
process :
 Either options for implementing the variations identified
during requirement process or normal variations during design

9. Supporting Variation Points
 Inclusion or omission of elements
 Inclusion of different number of replicated
elements
 Selection of versions of elements that have the
same interface but different behavioral or quality
attribute characteristics

10. Evaluating the Architecture for
Product Line
 Architecture is evaluated for its robustness and
generality
 Evaluation process focuses on :
 What to evaluate
 How to evaluate
 When to evaluate

11. Adoption Strategies
 Top-down :
 Manager orders to that the organization will use the
product line approach
 Bottom-up :
 Designers and developers begin to share resources and
develop generic core assets

12. Product Line Growth Models
 Proactive product line :
 Organization defines the family using comprehensive
definition of scope by taking advantages in the
application area
 Reactive product line :
 Organization builds the next member or member of
product family from earlier products

13. Evolving a Product Line
 As time passes, the product line must evolve
Sources driving the product line evolution :
 External sources :
 Externally created element may be added to the product
line
 Internal sources :
 New functions may be added to the product and product
line may be updated

14. Benefits
 Reduced Cost
 Improved Time to Market
 Flexible Staffing and Productivity
 Increased Predictability
 Higher Quality

15. Thank You
Dr. Himanshu Hora
SRMS College of Engg. & Tech., Bareilly
INDIA