SPL-DB-Sync: Seamless database transformation during feature-driven changes

Abstract

Software Product Line (SPL) Engineering is a reuse-oriented approach to developing a suite of software products that share common components but vary in specific features. The advantages of SPLs (e.g., reducing development costs and time while improving quality) have already been proven in practice. However, despite the success in deriving new products from an SPL, challenges arise in evolving existing products. Altering the feature selection (e.g., adding or removing a feature) for an already existing product poses a challenge regarding the application data stored and managed by derived products, particularly when the features impact an already populated database. In many cases, these modifications imply loss of data or constraint violations. However, in both the state of the art and practice, there are no approaches to support feature and data evolution simultaneously for SPL products.

This paper reports a novel evolution approach, SPL-DB-Sync, with actions required for database adjustments when adding or removing features for existing SPL products. Actions delineate modifications necessary within the database. These modifications are associated with the SPL features and linked to the components of the data model they influence. SPL-DB-Sync facilitates the automatic readjustment of the database while preserving clear traceability between features and elements of the data model. The applicability of our evolution model is detailed in four practical scenarios of in-production products of an SPL for Digital Libraries. The contributions of this work are: present a novel evolution approach for SPLs with databases; define an SPL Evolution Model considering data transformation/migration; advance the state of practice between software reuse and data management; and provide insights for practitioners that face the same challenges of evolving both business logic and its data in software products.