Towards automated detection of feature interactions.

Abstract

. The feature interaction problem occurs when the addition of a new feature to a system disrupts the existing services and features. This paper describes a tabular notation for specifying the functional behavior of telephony features. It also describes how four classes of feature interactions can be detected when features are specified in this new notation. The goal of this research is to develop a tool to automatically analyze feature specifications and detect interactions at the specification stage. 1 Introduction How does one add features to a system without disrupting the services and features already provided? A more difficult but related problem is: how can one ensure that combinations of independently developed services and features behave as expected? These questions, and other variations of the feature interaction problem, have plagued the telecommunications industry for several years [7]. More generally, they are problems that affect the development and evolution of ...