Assessment of software architectures: a case study

ABSTRACT

Producing high quality software is a very hard task. In the last years a big effort has been spent in devising techniques for estimating and/or measuring software properties. This ranges from forecasting, in a very early stage, the cost of software production to measuring several subcharacterics in order to assess the internal and external software quality. The role of predicting vs. measuring is gaining an increas ing relevance. As an example, the recently revised ISO 9126 standard [1] introduces the concept of Estimated (Predicted) Product Quality. It is clear that the sooner estimated figures are available, the better is possible to modify some design choices. Among all the aspects involved in software developing, a central role is played by the chosen software architecture. Estimating the quality characteristics of such architecture is a strategic activity that can drive several following design decision. In this paper we report the experience of an architectural assessment performed in Ericsson Lab Italy. The assessment was performed according to the framework presented by Jan Bosch in [2].

REFERENCES

• 1: "ISO/IEC 9126 Information technology - Software product evaluation - Quality characteristics and guidelines for their use" - ISO 2001
• 2: Jan Bosch, Design and use of software architectures: adopting and evolving a product-line approach, ACM Press/Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., New York, NY, 2000
• 3: http://www.sei.cmu.edu/plp/
• 4: "Packet based multimedia communication systems", Recommendation H.323 --- ITU-T, Geneva, Switzerland, Feb. 1998
• 5: http://www.sei.cmu.edu/architecture/definitions.html
• 6: The UML Modeling Language User Guide, Addison Wesley, 1999
• 7: Jan Bosch , PerOlof Bengtsson, Assessing Optimal Software Architecture Maintainability, Proceedings of the Fifth European Conference on Software Maintenance and Reengineering, p.168, March 14-16, 2001
• 8: PerOlof Bengtsson , Jan Bosch, An experiment on creating scenario profiles for software change, Annals of Software Engineering, v.9 n.1-4, p.59-78, 2000 [doi>10.1023/A:1018968506874]