Towards integrated rule-driven software development for IT ecosystems

Modern large-scale software-intensive systems are complex conglomerates of interacting (socio-) technical systems. The single systems are highly adaptive and autonomous leading to emergent behavior. Well-established development approaches, that are appropriate for single software-intensive systems, do not scale well for such systems-of-systems; the focus of development shifts from a complete specification of the system to the handling of emergent behavior. Traditional development approaches are not prepared for that shift. This paper outlines an integrated software development approach for IT ecosystems, a class of ultra-large scale software intensive systems. Single systems as parts of IT ecosystems are developed applying common model-driven techniques while rules specify how to detect emergent and undesired behavior and how to react. The integrated solution aims at enabling model-driven software development for IT ecosystems. The approach will be demonstrated and discussed by its application to a feasibility study. The presented concepts are part of the methodological foundation of future tool support for software development in IT ecosystems.