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Automating identification of services and their variability for product lines using NSGA-II

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Abstract

Architecture-level business services are identified based on business processes; and likewise, in service-oriented product lines, identifying the domain architecture-level business services and their variability is preferred to be based on business processes and their variability. Identification of business services for a product line satisfying a set of given design metrics (such as cohesion and coupling) is extremely difficult for a domain architect, since there are many product configurations for which the services must be proper at the same time. This means that the identified services must have proper values for n metrics in m different configurations at the same time. The problem becomes more serious when there are high degrees of variability and complexity embedded in the business processes that are the basis for service identification.We contribute to solve the multi-objective optimization problem of identifying business services for a product line by partitioning the graph of a business process variability model utilizing Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II. The service specification is achieved based on the results of the partitioning. The variability of the services is then determined in terms of mandatory and optional services as well as variability relationships, which are all represented in a Service Variability Model. The method was empirically evaluated through experimentation, and showed proper levels of reusability and variability. Furthermore, the resulting models were fully consistent.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Software Engineering Department, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, 19836, Iran

    Sedigheh Khoshnevis & Fereidoon Shams

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  1. Sedigheh Khoshnevis
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  2. Fereidoon Shams
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Correspondence to Sedigheh Khoshnevis.

Additional information

Sedigheh Khoshnevis received her PhD in software engineering from the Department of Software Engineering, Shahid Beheshti University, Iran in 2015. She is a member of the Automated Software Engineering Research (ASER) group at Shahid Beheshti University. Her interests include software product line engineering, service- oriented architecture, model driven architecture, and software architecture.

Fereidoon Shams received his PhD in software engineering from the Department of Computer Science, Manchester University, UK in 1996 and his MS from Sharif University of Technology, Iran in 1990. He is currently an associate professor of Software Engineering Department, Shahid Beheshti University, Iran. Also, he is heading two research groups: Automated Software Engineering Research (ASER) and Information Systems Architecture (ISA) at Shahid Beheshti University. His major interests are software architecture, enterprise architecture, service oriented architecture, agile methodologies, ultra-large-scale (ULS) systems, and ontological engineering.

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Khoshnevis, S., Shams, F. Automating identification of services and their variability for product lines using NSGA-II. Front. Comput. Sci. 11, 444–464 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11704-016-5121-6

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