Variability and Evolution in Systems of Systems

model n+2 Implementation model n+2 Evolution Evolution plan Step n Evolution plan Step n+1 Abs ract Temporary inconsistency Derivation Temporary inconsistency Derivation Figure 6: Planned evolution 3.2.5 Organizational structures and processes. There are varying organizational structures and process structures for PLE approaches, e.g., we have consider which organizational units are responsible for Domain and Application Engineering [5]. When transitioning to an SoS context, these organizational structures have to be re-considered accordingly. For instance, we can have one Domain Engineering team that is responsible for multiple subsystems or the responsibility for Domain Engineering can be distributed among different teams. 4 Evolution in Systems of Systems In this section we will look at the interplay between Systems of Systems and Evolution. Correspondingly, we will discuss relationships between concepts in Systems of Systems Engineering and Software Evolution. The lack of strategies and techniques for a sustainable evolution of very large and complex systems is one of the main motivators towards SoS research. 4.1 Historic evolution vs. future evolution As discussed earlier we can consider software evolution from two perspectives, the analysis of evolution “in the past” and the planning and management of evolution “in the future”. In a SoS context, both aspects are relevant just as well: On the one hand, we are interested how and where evolution occurs in a SoS, e.g., to better understand how everything is connected, how changes were propagated, or to determine if certain “laws” hold. On the other hand, we can aim to plan and manage the evolution happening in a SoS, e.g., with techniques to plan evolution over multiple interconnected systems and techniques to monitor and influence changes while they happen.