Leveraging Model Driven Engineering in Software Product Line Architectures

Model driven engineering (MDE) is a new innovation in the software industry that has proven to work synergistically with software product line architectures. It can provide the tools necessary to fully harness the power of software product lines. The major players in the software industry including commercial companies such as IBM, Microsoft, standards bodies including the Object Management Group and leading Universities such as the ISIS group at Vanderbilt University are embracing this MDE/PLA combination fully. IBM is spearheading the Eclipse Foundation including its MDE tools like EMF, GEF and GMF. Microsoft has launched there Software Factories foray into the MDE space. The goal of this tutorial is to educate attendees on what MDE technologies are, how exactly they relate synergistically to Product Line Architectures, and how to actually apply them using an existing Eclipse implementation.