Often software systems accommodate one or more software platforms on top of which various applications are developed and executed. Different application areas, such as enterprise resource planning, mobile devices, telecommunications, and so on, require different and specialized platforms. Many of them offer their services using standardized interface technologies to support integration with the applications built on top of them and with other platforms. The diversity of platform technologies and interfaces, however, renders the integration of multiple platforms challenging. In this paper, we discuss design alternatives for tailoring heterogeneous service platforms by studying high-level and low-level architectural design decisions for integrating and for adapting platforms. We survey and organize existing patterns and design decisions in the literature as a pattern language. With this pattern language, we address the various decision categories and interconnections for the service-based integration and the adaptation of applications developed based on software platforms. We apply this pattern language in an industry case study.

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