Standing on the Shoulders of Software Product Line Research for Testing Systems of Systems

The complex and dynamic nature of Systems of Systems (SoSs) poses many challenges on their validation and testing, but so far few effective test strategies exist to address them. On the other hand, extensive research has been conducted in the testing of Software Product Lines (SPLs), which present interesting convergence points with SoSs, as both disciplines aim at reducing development costs and time-to-market thanks to extensive reuse of existing artifacts. In this paper, we outline commonalities and differences between the SoS and SPL paradigms from the point of view of testing and investigate how existing methods and tools from SPL testing could be leveraged to address the challenges of SoS testing.