GEARSCommercial SPL Tool

Ohad Utitz

Moran Nave

May 2013

Outline

Overview Methodological Aspects Language Tool’s Capabilities & Characteristics Design Case Studies Benefits & Limitations References

GEARS Tool Overview

Provides a set of integrated tools to support each phase of the software product-line development process

Integrates with various tools and data types

Provides a unique "console" – the Gears Development Environment

Methodological Aspects

Methodological Aspects

Tool’s Capabilities & Characteristics

A single, automated product configurator Extends rather than replaces existing

software engineering toolset Create a "supply chain" of feature

configurable PLE assets Feature modeling constructs provided by

Gears:a) Feature declarationsb) Feature assertionsc) Feature profiles

Tool’s Capabilities & Characteristics

Automated production line comprised of three elements:Configurable Assets Feature Profiles Product Configurator

Language

Requirements: Doors, SysML UML Models: Rhapsody Source code & compilers: Java, C, C++, C#,

Ada, Perl, XML, HTML User guide: Word Consumer Product spec: Excel Unit tests: Junit Integration & system test cases: Quality

manager

Design

Product Line Engineering (PLE) Lifecycle Framework enables the integration of tools, assets and processes across the systems and software development lifecycle:A single feature model A single variation point mechanism A single, automated product configurator

Framework \ Design

The PLE Bridge API :"Product line aware"- supports for feature-

based variation points in the assets managed by the tool

The Gears Bridge SDK

Design

Case Studies

Adopted by IBM

General Dynamics and U.S. Army

Ikerlan/Alstom

HomeAway

Benefits An increase in the scope of product diversity and

the scale of different products that can be effectively delivered in a product line

A reduction in per-product development cost and overhead

A reduction in time to market for new and updated products, and an increased agility to react to new opportunities and changing marketplace conditions

An increase in product quality and improved risk management

Limitations

Gears is intended for large and established organizations:Doesn’t fit for private useExpensive for small organizations

References

Biglever Software website at http://www.biglever.com/solution/product.html

Krueger, Charles W. "BigLever software gears and the 3-tiered SPL methodology." Companion to the 22nd ACM SIGPLAN conference on Object-oriented programming systems and applications companion. ACM, 2007.

Clements, Paul et all. “Systems and Software Product Line Engineering with BigLever Software Gears”, BigLever Software, Inc.