Evaluating Product Line Architecture for Grid Computing Middleware Systems: Ubá Experience

There exist many methods for evaluating the quality of product line architectures (PLAs). However, none of them have been applied considering the inherent particularities of PLAs for grid oriented middleware systems. This paper presents how an existing method, named FAE (Family Architecture Evaluation), has been adapted to be applied to evaluate a PLA for grid oriented middleware. In order to validate the proposed adaptations, it has been used to evaluate the Ubá product line architecture. Ubá is a PLA specially designed for building grid oriented middleware systems.