Quantitative Variability Modeling and Analysis

The explicit management of variability in the development cycle of software-intensive systems has led to a plethora of modeling and analysis techniques tailored to deal with behavioral validation of such configurable systems. Most of the work, however, focuses on qualitative (i.e. functional) requirements. Recently, there is growing interest in variability modeling and analysis techniques that do explicitly consider quantitative (i.e. non-functional) requirements, such as dependability, energy consumption, security, and cost. Today's software is embedded in a variety of smart and critical systems that run in environments where events occur randomly and affect the system, and to which it needs to adapt. Therefore, quantitative modeling and analysis is currently a hot topic. The panel on Quantitative Variability Modeling and Analysis (QSPL) discusses the latest quantitative techniques and how to apply them to variability modeling and analysis of software-intensive systems.