Leveraging Model Driven Engineering in Software Product Line Architectures

Model Driven Engineering (MDE) is a promising recent innovation in the software industry that has proven to work synergistically with Software Product Line Architectures (SPLAs). It can provide the tools necessary to fully harness the power of Software Product Lines. The major players in the software industry including commercial companies such as IBM, Microsoft, standards bodies including the Object Management Group and leading Universities such as the ISIS group at Vanderbilt University are embracing this MDE/PLA combination fully. IBM is spearheading the Eclipse Foundation including its MDE tools like EMF, GEF and GMF. Microsoft has launched there Software Factories foray into the MDE space. Top software groups such as the ISIS group at Vanderbilt are using these MDE techniques in combination with Software Produce Line Architectures for very complex systems. The Object Management Group is working on standardizing the various facets of MDE. All of these groups are capitalizing on the perfect storm of critical innovations today that allow such an approach to finally be viable. To further emphasize the timeliness of this technology is the complexity ceiling the software industry find itself facing wherein the platform technologies have increased far in advance of the language tools necessary to deal with them.