Product-line architectures (PLAs) have received considerable attention within the U.S. Army's Live, Virtual, and Constructive (LVC) training domains. The software PLA framework paradigm has proven successful in minimizing stovepipe system development, and reducing system life-cycle cost and schedule. However, as the Department of Defense (DoD) and Army strive to further reduce system life-cycle costs, and as technology improves, LVC PLAs must evolve to align with future acquisition strategies and technology insertion. Three major areas that require improvement for PLAs have been identified within the LVC environment. First, traditional PLAs lack the ability to interoperate with one another unless extensive measures are taken to natively interface them. Second, when users require on-demand product-line components, software applications, and upgrades, they must wait for fielding support and personnel to provide installation on each computer. Third, massive volumes of data are being stored and processed by large complex database servers requiring excessive physical space.

There are three state-of-the-art strategies that can be implemented to improve PLA for LVC training, and collectively reduce system life-cycle costs. These strategies include service-oriented architecture (SOA), cloud computing, and virtualization. This paper will evaluate the concepts, technologies, challenges, and benefits for adopting these complementary approaches into the LVC training domains. Numerous features and benefits will be identified by the realization of these architectural strategies. SOA migration will enable total system interoperability, resulting in composable, reusable, and loosely coupled services. Cloud computing will allow product-line architectural services, components, software applications, and software updates and upgrades to be readily available in a logically centralized repository where consumers can access them as needed. Virtualization will improve organization between database servers and reduce hardware footprint.