Feature Matching in Model-Based Software Engineering

There is a growing need to reduce the cycle of business information systems development and make it independent of underlying technologies. Model-driven synthesis of software offers solutions to these problems. This article describes a method for synthesizing business software implementations from technology independent business models. The synthesis of business software implementation performed in two steps, is based on establishing a common feature space for problem and solution domains. In the first step, a solution domain and a software architecture style are selected by matching the explicitly required features of a given software system, and implicitly required features of a given problem domain to the features provided by the solution domain and the architectural style. In the second step, all the elements of a given business analysis model are transformed into elements or configurations in the selected solution domain according to the selected architectural style, by matching their required features to the features provided by the elements and configurations of the selected solution domain. In both steps it is possible to define cost functions for selecting between different alternatives which provide the same features. The differences of our method are the separate step of solution domain analysis during the software process, which produces the feature model of the solution domain, and usage of common feature space to select the solution domain, the architectural style and specific implementations.