Abstract
Article history: Received October 15, 2014 Accepted January 24, 2014 Available online February 4 2014 The software architecture plays essential role for the development of the complicated software systems and it is important to evaluate the software architecture efficiency. One way to evaluate the software architecture is to create an executable model from the architecture. Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagrams are used to describe the software architecture. UML has made it easy to use and to evaluate the necessary requirements at the software architecture level. It creates an executable model from these diagrams; yet, since the UML is a standard semi-formal language for describing the software architecture, evaluating the software architecture is not directly possible through it. Furthermore, in order to evaluate the software architecture, one needs to turn the actual model into the formal model. In this study, first we describe the architecture using the UML. Then, some properties of the software architecture are mentioned using the UML sequence diagram, deployment diagram, use case diagram, and component diagram. The necessary information associated with the qualitative characteristic of efficiency will be margined as cliches and labels to these diagrams. The independent and dependent components will be extracted from the component diagram. Finally, the resulted semi-formal model will be mapped into a formal model based on the colored Petri net and finally the evaluation will take place. © 2014 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Highlights
With an increase in the number of complicated software systems usages, it is essential to develop their principles and methodologies to meet all desired properties
The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a standard, semi-formal language intended for the easy description of the software architecture, and it is used to meet the necessary requirements in software engineering
■ The variables in the colored Petri nets are introduced to provide more flexibility when we model a system, they are defined for a set of colors and used exactly the same way as the colors are used in the arcs
Summary
With an increase in the number of complicated software systems usages, it is essential to develop their principles and methodologies to meet all desired properties. The software architecture, as the first product, plays essential role for the development of the complicated systems. An. There are various formal models to explain an executable architecture such as the colored Petri nets, queue nets, simulation nets, procedural algebra, etc. Efficiency and proper response time are among the important subject matters in designing, developing, and implementing the systems. Many designers are looking for some special circumstances to produce software with high efficiency in less production time, cost and necessary maintenance. One way to tackle this problem is to evaluate and to analyze the software efficiency in the preliminary stages of the software production process. The main problem here is to find out how to evaluate and how to analyze the system architecture using the documentations prior to the production of a software system. Presenting an effective method to evaluate and to analyze the efficiency based on the software architecture may contribute in driving a software project successfully forward (Clements & Klein, 2002; Kumar & Jaspernete, 2012)
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