Variability Exchange Language - A Generic Exchange Format for Variability Data

The purpose of the Variability Exchange Language is to support the information exchange among variant management tools on the one hand and systems development tools on the other hand. The essential tasks of a variant management tool are to represent and analyze the variability of a system abstractly and to define system configurations by selecting the desired system features. A system development tool captures information of a specific kind, such as requirements, architecture, component design, or tests. In order to support the development of variable systems, development tools either have to offer the capability to express and deal with variability directly, or an additional piece of software like an add-on must be provided that adds this capability to the development tool. To interconnect variant management with systems development, the information exchange among the corresponding tools must be established. A variant management tool must be able to read or extract the variability from a development tool and to pass a configuration, i.e. a set of selected system features, to the development tool. Up to now, the interfaces that support this information exchange are built for each development tool anew. With a standardized Variability Exchange Language, a common interface can be defined that is implemented by the development tools and used by the variant management tools. The integration of variant management tools with systems development tools via this interface enables a continuous development process for variable systems and supports a flexible usage of tools for this process.