Software Product Line: System Architecture 2.0 ?

Informator offers ten courses in the field of System Architecture / IT Architecture. Starter courses are platform independent (the wider one T1101, as well as the narrower deeper one T20112). Modeling courses depend only on standard UML (stage 1, T2715, stage 2, T2716).
In continuation courses on the other hand, platform independence is not so easily done: The deeper you explain, the more need for detailed examples to illustrate how things work in a particular case, environment, standard, or architecture pattern. It’s an either-or, {xor} , especially in an Agile context like Informator (have you ever heard of an Agile project searching with fervor for a 350-day course, titled “Everything You’ve Ever Wondered about IT Architecture, Platform by Platform”)…
One route is to “make up for lost ground:” pick a QA (quality attribute) of IT Architecture that was underestimated and neglected in the past, and dedicate a day or more to it. IT Security is no doubt one of such QAs, and therefore, increasingly covered by courses. Most IT architects would also put all flavors of Modifiability near-top, and argue that if you’re in trouble on some other QA, but OK on Modifiability, you at least have a way out. That’s the rationale behind the one-day course on Software Product Line architecture (T1430, launched 2015).
The idea of Software Product Line sounds perfectly logical to Scandinavian companies, thank our solid tradition of modularization and configurability in “old” sectors of economy, and thank early forerunners in ICT as well – telecom, ERP, SCM, CRM…
That said, Modifiability, including Variability, is an architectural tradeoff (as opposed to maximizing it at all costs). The bottom line is similar to most of IT Architecture. Over time, you want to save more time through preprogrammed variability mechanisms, than you’ve spent developing and deploying them.
consultant, Kiseldalen.com
UML 2 Professional, OCUP Advanced Level (cert level 3, of 3)

Milan
collaborates with Informator since 1996 within modeling, UML, requirements, analysis, architecture and design. Currently teaching courses on Architecture, modeling (T2715, T2716), and in 2013 also Informator’s (full up) Seminar on Use Cases.