A systematic mapping study on architectural smells detection

Abstract

The recognition of the need for high-quality software architecture is evident from the increasing trend in investigating architectural smells. Detection of architectural smells is paramount because they can seep through to design and implementation stages if left unidentified. Many architectural smells detection techniques and tools are proposed in the literature. The diversity in the detection techniques and tools suggests the need for their collective analysis to identify interesting aspects for practice and open research areas. To fulfill this, in this paper, we unify the knowledge about the detection of architectural smells through a systematic mapping study. We report on the existing detection techniques and tools for architectural smells to identify their limitations. We find there has been limited investigation of some architectural smells (e.g., micro-service smells); many architectural smells are not detected by tools yet; and there are limited empirical validations of techniques and tools. Based on our findings, we suggest several open research problems, including the need to (1) investigate undetected architectural smells (e.g., Java package smells), (2) improve the coverage of architectural smell detection across architecture styles (e.g., service-oriented and cloud), and (3) perform empirical validations of techniques and tools in industry across different languages and project domains.