Research On Feature Model Driven Software Development Methodology And Related Technologies

The increasing development of hardware and software exploits a new direction of human civilization, with the extremely higher productivity and production automation level. At the same time, software and its development skill also gain a great achievement in the process of domain application as a reward. However, with the wider application extension and deeper investigation in various domains, the complexity of application domain becomes a main block in the progress of software production. First, the variety of domain business logics makes the system to entirely rewrite just for some different requirements; Secondly, on one hand, new invited software theories and technologies accelerate the development process with higher quality in an easier way, but on the other hand, they also make the prior investment which couples with outdated technologies lose its value; Lastly, the evolution of domain business logic also results in the natural loss of online software production value. To solve these problems, a lot of theories and methods, such as domain-driven technology and model-driven technology representatively, are presented. Domain Driven technology analyzes domain requirements, try to organize and represent the common and variable requirements in a consistent way and select the specific requirements through feature model configuration, hoping to solve the generation of product family. Model Driven Technology aims at system representations; it describes system as models with different abstraction levels and perspectives, so the related persons can use these models to describe the system in more human-central way other than computer-central way. Once these system models constructed, they can be transformed to more detailed and platform-oriented models or executable code through various transformation rules. Model Driven Theory can technologically solve the problem of invested asset loss caused by the new invented programming technique, as the result of decouple of business logic and realization-oriented details. On the basis of the main idea of domain-driven technology and model-driven technology, this thesis presents a new methodology called Feature Model Driven Software Development Methodology (FDSDM) in details, with the description of the architecture of FDSDM tool set, the process of FDSDM and various software artifacts generated in the milestone of FDSDM process. In order to support the application of FDSDM, this thesis also defines MOF-based metamodel of feature model, designs the algorithm of feature model conflict detection and gives the method to transform the feature model (CIM) to model component and reference architecture (PIMs). In details, the main research contents in the thesis are listed as follows:1. Research on Feature Model Driven Software Development Methodology. Software artifact reuse is the best way to maintain the invested asset value. By adopting the core ideas of Domain Driven Technology, FDSDM represents the common and variable requirements in a consistent way called feature model and the concrete system requirement is selected through the configuration of feature model, which realize the reuse of model among different products. By absorbing the benefits of Model Driven Technology, FDSDM treats the steady model as first-class artifact and changes the traditional programming-central software process to model-central, which shield the asset depreciation caused by new platforms or techniques, which maximize the reuse of model and investment. In details, the thesis introduces the architecture of FDSDM tool set, describes the process and artifacts of FDSDM, which gives a general description of FDSDM.2. Research on the Meta-model of Feature Model. In order to describe the feature model in a consistent way and facilitate transformation between different models, this thesis define the meta-model of feature model based on OMG's MOF standard. The meta-model describes the abstract and concrete syntax in a formal way and the semantics in a semi-formal way. At the meanwhile, this thesis introduces the import and merging mechanism of the feature model and realizes the algorithm of feature model conflict detection, which founds the basis of feature model automated operation.3. Research on transformation method from feature model to model component. To facilitate the transformation from feature model to model component, the thesis introduces the concept of role, and then uses it as an intermediary to complete the transformation process from CIM to PIM. Transformation process performs the feature operationalization, role analysis model construction and feature-role-component algorithm in turn. Feature operationalization is the process to decompose the requirement-specific features into computation-oriented roles. Role analysis model make feature as a unit to analyze the interaction between roles and build the relationships among the roles. The feature-role-component algorithm finally transforms the feature to model component and constructs the reusable model component, realizing the transformation from CIM to PIM.4. Research on reference architecture transformation method. The thesis analyzes the relationship between the feature model variability and reference architecture description language, gives levels and affects factors of reference architecture variability description, according which the rule of feature model to reference architecture transformation is presented, and also describes a method to construct product family reference architecture in general, which semi-automates the architecture construction.The creative points in the thesis include:1. Present a feature model driven software development methodology combining domain driven technology and model driven technology. The FDSDM begins with domain analysis, using feature model to represent and organize the common and variable requirements of domain product family consistently; Driven by model transformation, system milestone models in different process stage and perspective are converted to more detailed model or executable code, which realize system (semi-)automated generation. FDSDM takes the advantages of domain driven and model driven technologies, making the development process more human-central other than computer-central , which reduces the error coming from thought transformation , minimizes the human affection in development and realizes the engineering of software industry.2. Define the meta-model of feature model in a formal way and realize the algorithm of automated feature model conflict detection. In order to support FDSDM effectively and efficiently, this thesis design the meta model of feature model based on OMG's MOF standard, define its abstract and concrete syntax in a formal way, the meta model based on MOF facilitate the horizontal and vertical transformation from feature model to other models conformed to MDA specification, and also make it possible to transform feature model to models on the basis of other standard using MOF-based transformation engine. In addition, the introduction of conflict detection algorithm and feature model import and merge mechanism make it easier for FDSDM to apply to real large-scaled project and protect the asset value.3. Present a method to transform the feature model to model component. the present model transformation research are mainly focus on the rules from PIM to PSM or PSM to executable code, there is little on how to transform the system requirements(CIM) to system model(PIM). The thesis presents a new method, which introduces role as an intermediary. The method performs feature operationalization, role model analysis and transformation algorithm in turn to accomplish the goal of semi-automated component generation. The presentation of method gives a potential way for CIM-to-PIM transformation, hoping to attract more attention to this research area.4. Present the rules of feature model to reference architecture transformation. Traditional ADL (Architecture Description Language) describes only one single product, which lack of the ability to describe the whole product family. To solve the consistent description of reference architecture, the thesis analyzes the source and type of feature model variability, maps the variability to port variability and component variability in architecture description, and describes the reference architecture by combining these variabilities. The thesis also gives the rules to transform different kinds of feature model variable points to reference architecture variable points, which realize the corresponding model transformation.By the research on FDSDM and related technologies, this thesis hopes to find a economic way in software development ideologically and practically to solve the couple of complexity between domain logic and technology, increase the productivity and automation level of software industry and maintain the invested asset value.