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Model-Based Evaluation and Simulation of Software Architecture Evolution

Authors:
Peter Alexander
Ana Nicolaescu
Horst Lichter

Keywords: Software Architecture Reconstruction; Software Architecture Evaluation; Software Architecture Simulation; Software Architecture Viewpoint; Software Architecture

Abstract:
The software architecture description is often the reasoning basis for important design decisions. Nevertheless, during the evolution of a system, the software architecture tends to deviate from its description which gradually approaches obsolescence. Software architecture reconstruction tools can be employed to retrieve up-to-date descriptions, however reconstruction by itself is never a purpose. The reconstructed architecture description should, e.g., support the architects to identify the best evolution variant with respect to a set of quality characteristics of interest. The state of the art approaches address reconstruction and evolution simulation in separation. To simulate changes, the current state of the system must be first manually modeled. In our previous work, we presented ARAMIS, an approach to support the reconstruction and evaluation of software architecture with a strong emphasis on software behavior. In this paper, we propose the extension of our approach for enabling the simulation of design decisions on the recovered architecture description. To reduce complexity and support a more focused analysis, we allow to specify and apply viewpoints, views, and perspectives on the recovered description and its evolution simulations.

Pages: 153 to 156

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2015

Publication date: November 15, 2015

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4235

ISBN: 978-1-61208-438-1

Location: Barcelona, Spain

Dates: from November 15, 2015 to November 20, 2015