Variability in Service-Oriented Systems: An Analysis of Existing Approaches

In service-oriented systems services can be easily reused and shared without modification. However, there are business situations where a variation of services is needed to meet the requirements of a specific customer or context. Variation of software systems has been well researched in product line engineering in terms of Variability Implementation Techniques (VITs). While most VITs focus on the customization of traditional software systems, several VITs have been developed for service-oriented systems. In this paper, we discuss the problem of service customization and provide an overview of different VITs for service variability. For this purpose, we will define four dimensions to describe, characterize and analyze existing VITs: the technical core idea, the object of variation, the forms of variation, and the binding time.