Home // International Journal On Advances in Software, volume 3, numbers 1 and 2, 2010 // View article

Metrics for the Evaluation of Adaptivity Aspects in Software Systems

Authors:
Claudia Raibulet
Laura Masciadri

Keywords: adaptivity, adaptive systems, evaluation, software metrics.

Abstract:
Runtime adaptivity is related to the ability of the information systems to perform changes by themselves and on themselves during their execution. The engineering of runtime adaptivity is one of the most challenging issues to address in today’s information systems. This is due to the fact that runtime adaptivity requires additional elements at the architectural or structural levels. Moreover, it increases the dimension and computation of a system. Its advantages are mostly related to the improvement of performances, enhancement of the functionalities’ quality and automation of administrative tasks. In this paper we propose a set of metrics for the description and evaluation of adaptive properties of the information systems and of the frameworks which provide support for the development of adaptive systems. They aim to provide a concrete mechanism to analyze the quality of the design of adaptive systems, to determine the type of adaptivity of a system or to compare the adaptive features of different systems. Metrics are grouped into six categories: architectural, structural, performance, interaction, documentation, and miscellaneous. They have been identified and specified by analyzing several case studies which address runtime adaptivity issues through different approaches with different objectives in various application domains and several frameworks for the design and implementation of adaptive systems.

Pages: 238 to 251

Copyright: Copyright (c) to authors, 2010. Used with permission.

Publication date: September 5, 2010

Published in: journal

ISSN: 1942-2628