Context-Specific Middleware Specialization Techniques for Optimizing Software Product-Line Architectures

Overview

Product-Line Architectures (PLA)s are an emerging paradigm for developing software families for Distributed Real-time and Embedded (DRE) systems by customizing reusable artifacts, rather than handcrafting software from scratch. This paper provides many contributions to the study of middleware specialization techniques for PLA-based DRE systems. First, they identify key dimensions of generality in standard middleware, including generality stemming from framework implementations, deployment platforms, and middleware standards. Second, they illustrate how context-specific specialization techniques can be automated and applied to tailor standard middleware to better meet the QoS needs of different PLA product variants. Third, they quantify the benefits of applying automated tools to specialize a standard Real-time CORBA middleware implementation.