Improving Awareness during Product Derivation in Multi-User Multi Product Line Environments

Existing product derivation approaches focus on support for single users resolving variability based on a single variability model. However, in practice multiple users perform product derivation of large-scale systems with system-ofsystems architectures in a distributed and asynchronous manner. It is infeasible to describe the variability of such multi product lines with one integrated model. Rather, several models are needed. Existing research mainly focuses on supporting modeling in multi product lines. The aim of our ongoing research is however to improve awareness for multiple users involved in product derivation in such environments, i.e., to make users configuring one subsystem aware of the relevant configuration decisions made for other subsystems. In this paper we describe an industrial scenario of a multi product line and derive requirements for awareness support. We present a preliminary approach based on the "publish/subscribe" pattern and a tool prototype that aims at improving awareness in product derivation by sharing decisions across different derivation projects. Keywords-multi product lines; product derivation; awareness