Systems of Systems: New challenges for maintenance and evolution

Over the past decade, there has been a shift in software engineering practice away from the development of traditional stand-alone systems and toward large scale systems of systems (SoS). The movement toward SoS, in which there is often not a single organization in control, requires a change in a number of maintenance and evolution practices. This paper outlines the basic dimensions of a SoS, and traces its implications for software evolution and maintenance.