Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method Research Articles

Integrating systems of systems with a federation of rule engines

Systems of Systems (SoSs) integrate many critical systems our society relies on. In designing individual systems, stakeholders use bespoke protocols, custom information models, and proprietary components with limited computational resources from various vendors. We present a reference architecture that allows multiple stakeholders to carry out a flexible integration without giving up control to a single entity in the presence of the aforementioned limitations. Our architecture relies on rule engines and graph data model to integrated systems flexibly even when black-box components are used. At the same time, a federation of the rule engines allows each stakeholder to retain control over the rules that reflect their policies. We also rely on a common information model based on ontologies to account for the information model mismatch and reduce the duplication of integration efforts. Moving rule execution to the standalone rule engines allows deployment in resource-constrained and proprietary environments. A uniform application programming interface (API) is used to integrate rule engines across systems as well as components within each system with a respective rule engine. We also present a novel algorithm to determine dependencies across rules deployed in different rule engines within the federation. This allows domain experts to develop rules as usual without having to deal with the distributed aspect of the system. We also present a proof of the sufficient condition to ensure all necessary notifications will be sent to ensure correct rule activation across different rule engines. Compared to other systems involving distributed rules, the proposed architecture is well-suited for the integration of transactional workloads commonly found in enterprises. The qualitative evaluation based on the Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM), applied to a telecommunications use case, shows that the architecture possesses the “interoperability”, “modifiability”, and the “functional completeness” quality attributes with a trade-off around rule expressiveness. The quantitative evaluation demonstrates speedup over the single-node setup in most scenarios except in case of highly optimized rules and a poor network performance simultaneously (tr<10ms, tn=100ms).

An analysis of blockchain versus relational databases for digitalising information flows in global supply chains using the analytic network process

Global trade is plagued by slow and inefficient manual processes associated with physical documents. Firms are constantly looking for new ways to improve transparency and increase the resilience of their supply chains. This can be solved by the digitalisation of supply chains and the automation of document- and information-sharing processes. Blockchain is touted as a solution to these issues due to its unique combination of features, such as immutability, decentralisation and transparency. A lack of business cases that quantify the costs and benefits causes uncertainty regarding the truth of these claims. This paper explores how the costs and benefits of a blockchain-based solution for digitalising and automating documentation flows in cross-border supply chains compare to a conventional centralised relational database solution. The research described in this paper uses primary data collected through semi-structured interviews with industry experts, as well as secondary data from literature. Two models based on existing services were developed and the costs and benefits compared and then analysed using the Architecture Trade-off Analysis Method (ATAM) and the Analytic Network Process (ANP). Findings from the analysis show that a consortium blockchain solution like TradeLens is the favourable solution for digitalising and automating information flows in cross-border supply chains.

Architecture evaluation in continuous development

ContextIn automotive, stage-gate processes have previously been the norm, with architecture created mainly during an early phase and then used to guide subsequent development phases. Current iterative and Agile development methods, where the implementation evolves continuously, changes the role of architecture. ObjectiveWe investigate how architecture evaluation can provide useful feedback during development of continuously evolving systems. MethodStarting from the Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM), we performed architecture evaluation, both in a national research project led by an automotive Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), and at the OEM, in the context of continuous development. This allows us to include the experience of several architects from different organizations over several years. Using data produced during the evaluations we perform a post-hoc analysis to derive initial findings. We then validate and refine these findings through a series of focus groups with architects and industry experts. FindingsWe propose principles of continuous evaluation and evolution of architecture, and based on these discuss a roadmap for future research. ConclusionIn iterative development settings, the needs are different from what typical architecture evaluation methods provide. Our principles show the importance of dedicated feedback-loops for continuous evolution of systems and their architecture.

Architecting an Agent-Based Fault Diagnosis Engine for IEC 61499 Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems

IEC 61499 is a reference architecture for constructing Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems (ICPS). However, current function block development environments only provide limited fault-finding capabilities. There is a need for comprehensive diagnostic tools that help engineers identify faults, both during development and after deployment. This article presents the software architecture for an agent-based fault diagnostic engine that equips agents with domain-knowledge of IEC 61499. The engine encourages a Model-Driven Development with Diagnostics methodology where agents work alongside engineers during iterative cycles of design, development, diagnosis and refinement. Attribute-Driven Design (ADD) was used to propose the architecture to capture fault telemetry directly from the ICPS. A Views and Beyond Software Architecture Document presents the architecture. The Architecturally-Significant Requirement (ASRs) were used to design the views while an Architectural Trade-off Analysis Method (ATAM) evaluated critical parts of the architecture. The agents locate faults during both early-stage development and later provide long-term fault management. The architecture introduces dynamic, low-latency software-in-loop Diagnostic Points (DPs) that operate under the control of an agent to capture fault telemetry. Using sound architectural design approaches and documentation methods, coupled with rigorous evaluation and prototyping, the article demonstrates how quality attributes, risks and architectural trade-offs were identified and mitigated early before the construction of the engine commenced.

Application of high-level methods of compromise optimization for control of autonomous robotized open pit mining

In most software engineering approaches, software design begins with defining functional requirements, which is well suited to web-based software development projects. When designing high-critical large-scale software intended for industrial use, accounting for non-functional software requirements is also required. The main idea of the proposed document-oriented approach is to design a stable architectural solution as early as possible, taking into account the nonfunctional characteristics of the software: reliability, security, maintainability and performance (quality attributes). At the same time, the key issue is the coordination of functional requirements, taking into account technical limitations and business requirements achieved during the steady interaction of customer and developer teams. To increase the flexibility of the designed solutions and prevent crisis situations when developing highly critical large-scale software, it is proposed to use the approach integrating the architecture-centric design method (ACDM), the architecture-tradeoff analysis method (ATAM) with a matrix enterprise architecture matrix (EAM). This allows getting a result that is adequate to the required level of responsibility and reliability. Consideration of quality attributes within the framework of the method of compromise analysis makes it possible to select and make certain decisions in software design taking into account the scale of the software and its scope. The main attributes of product quality are highlighted (ISO 25010 standard), critical scenarios are defined for each of them (templates and use cases). The use of these templates for detailed software design with the necessary parameters of functional requirements, business conditions and technological limitations reduces the risk of developing unpredictable and uncertain system behavior. Based on the proposed approach, an architectural solution is presented for highly critical, responsible, large-scale software for managing autonomous robotic open-pit mining of minerals. Critical attributes for creating the specified software were identified and ranked, and the architecture of the solution according to the SWEBOK software development standard was described. Further, taking into account the nature, scale and scope of the software solution, recommendations are given on high-level architectural templates for the system design, including layers, pipelines and microservices. The proposed architecture-oriented development method is suitable for industrial-level software in various subject areas.

Blockchain and cryptocurrencies: A classification and comparison of architecture drivers

AbstractBlockchain is a decentralized transaction and data management solution, the technological leap behind the success of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. As the variety of existing blockchains and distributed ledgers continues to increase, adopters should focus on selecting the solution that best fits their needs and the requirements of their decentralized applications, rather than developing yet another blockchain from scratch. In this article we present a conceptual framework to aid software architects, developers, and decision makers to adopt the right blockchain technology. The framework exposes the interrelation between technological decisions and architectural features, capturing the knowledge from existing academic literature, industrial products, technical forums/blogs, and experts' feedback. We empirically show the applicability of our framework by dissecting the platforms behind Bitcoin and other top 10 cryptocurrencies, aided by a focus group with researchers and industry practitioners. Then, we leverage the framework together with key notions of the architectural tradeoff analysis method to analyze four real‐world blockchain case studies from industry and academia. Results shown that applying our framework leads to a deeper understanding of the architectural tradeoffs, allowing to assess technologies more objectively and select the one that best fit developers' needs, ultimately cutting costs, reducing time‐to‐market and accelerating return on investment.

Architecture-Centric Evaluation of Blockchain-Based Smart Contract E-Voting for National Elections

E-voting is one of the valid use cases of blockchain technology with many blockchain e-voting systems already proposed. But efforts that focus on critical analysis of blockchain e-voting architectures for national elections from stakeholders’ perspectives are mostly lacking in the literature. Therefore, government decision-makers and election stakeholders do not yet have a sufficient basis to understand the potential risks, challenges, and prospects that are associated with blockchain e-voting. This paper demonstrates how the use of the Architecture Trade-off Analysis Method (ATAM) can enable stakeholders in national elections to understand the risks, prospects, and challenges that could be associated with a blockchain e-voting system for national elections. By using a study context of South Africa, a proposed blockchain e-voting architecture was used as a basis to aid election stakeholders to reason on the concept of blockchain e-voting to get them to understand the potential risks, security threats, critical requirements attributes, and weaknesses that could be associated with using blockchain e-voting for national elections. The study found that blockchain e-voting can prevent many security attacks, internal vote manipulation, and promote transparency. However, voter validation and the security of the blockchain architecture are potential weaknesses that will need significant attention.

Analysis, design and development of advanced planning systems

Small and medium-sized organisations (SMO) often need to optimise their operations to improve their effectiveness in a competitive world. Advanced planning systems (APS) emerged to provide optimal operations in several areas of an organisation, including production planning and scheduling, logistics, financial, among others. Currently, there is a gap in the literature regarding proposals, from a software engineering perspective, to assist SMOs in the design and development of APS systems. This article proposes an architecture for the APS domain that supports the implementation of specific applications and can be adapted through variation points. The proposal is evaluated with architecture trade-off analysis method (ATAM) involving two different groups of stakeholders. Also, a process is included to show how to use the architecture in the implementation of a specific case. Finally, a case study based on a local industry is developed.

REST Architecture Optimization in Cloud Computing Ecosystem to Support E Learning Platform

This study will present an application design process in the style of Representational State Transfer (REST) architecture to support the E-Learning platform in the cloud computing ecosystem. An application optimization process will be presented to provide E-Learning applications for schools, faculties or universities that in most cases need manual deployment and require more time for server provisioning.This process is optimized by providing application solutions that can provide speed of provisioning.The core system used Kubernetes containerization technology to provide scalability of growing E-Learning tenants. Evaluation of the core system architecture uses the Architecture Trade-off Analysis Method (ATAM) to evaluate aspect of performance and scalability as quality attributes. From the experimentalresults, the process of making new tenants for schools requires an average time of around 173.4 seconds. This meets the expectations of the set time limit of 5 minutes. The results of stress tests for 250 concurrent users show that the system has availability above 98%.Thus,education stakeholders such as schools and universities, no longer need to provide expensive e-learning infrastructure in the form of hardware or manpower to deploy the e-learning application on premise. In the future, this solution will provide a scalable E-Learning system that can spread at scale on the cloud computing ecosystem and support a Software as a Service solution in educational technology.

Analysis, Design and Development of Advanced Planning Systems

Small and medium-sized organisations (SMO) often need to optimise their operations to improve their effectiveness in a competitive world. Advanced planning systems (APS) emerged to provide optimal operations in several areas of an organisation, including production planning and scheduling, logistics, financial, among others. Currently, there is a gap in the literature regarding proposals, from a software engineering perspective, to assist SMOs in the design and development of APS systems. This article proposes an architecture for the APS domain that supports the implementation of specific applications and can be adapted through variation points. The proposal is evaluated with architecture trade-off analysis method (ATAM) involving two different groups of stakeholders. Also, a process is included to show how to use the architecture in the implementation of a specific case. Finally, a case study based on a local industry is developed.

Structural and behavioral reference model for IoT‐based elderly health‐care systems in smart home

SummaryIncreasing level of personal and social health and life expectancy has resulted in the growth of aged people population. Elderly care is an essential and costly issue in any society that should be addressed in researches. Elderly care has faced some problems such as elderly solitary, trained caregivers insufficiency, and increasing cost of late diagnosis of diseases and accident. Regarding to these problems, smart home technology can be used as an efficient solution. It provides an expertise, long‐term, and low‐cost care that empowers elderly to have an independent life. In this paper, we propose an architecture for a health‐care system in a smart home. In this architecture, rapid and timely diagnosis of environmental incidents and health risks causes reduction in costs of health care and relief. Given to the vital aspect of health‐care systems, the proposed architecture components and solutions are presented to meet quality attributes such as availability, performance, security, and interoperability. The proposed architecture evaluation is based on the Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM) scenario‐based approach. ATAM is a method for analysis and evaluation of software systems architecture. And quality attributes scenarios are examined to meet quality requirement. Compared with the previous works, more quality attributes are addressed in this paper.

Architectural Analysis for Mobile Devices with Quality Attributes Using Architecture Trade-Off Analysis Method

Architectural Analysis for Mobile Devices with Quality Attributes Using Architecture Trade-Off Analysis Method

A case study of HMS using CIPA

In recent years, research into software architecture (SA) has become an important topic within the domain of software engineering. Since architecture plays a dominant role, analysis of SA is more important. Aim of analysing SA is to predict the quality of that system before it has been built. Among many SA analysis methods available, architecture trade-off analysis method is the most desirable one. Pattern’s which has impact on quality attributes is also used in this paper. This paper analyses hospital management system case study as a major work and uses new patterns named creative innovative patterns for architecture analysis to analyse its architecture.

An Architecture Combining IMS-LD and Web Services for Flexible Data-Transfer in CSCL

This article presents evaluation data regarding the MAPIS3 architecture which is proposed as a solution for the data-transfer among various tools to promote flexible collaborative learning designs. We describe the problem that this architecture deals with as “tool orchestration” in collaborative learning settings. This term refers to a situation where data relevant to a collaborative learning activity need to be forwarded to and processed by various learning technological tools (e.g. a forum, a pedagogical agent, a service or a software component that provides a specific functionality, etc.), in order for the collaborative activity to be efficiently represented and teachers’ pedagogical level decisions implemented. To facilitate data-transfer among the various tools and accomplish flexible interventions during runtime, the architecture employs a key component (“mediator component”) which makes use of an IMS-LD based representation of the activity. By implementing the architecture tradeoff analysis method in three case studies, evaluation data regarding the proposed architecture have been recorded and are presented in this paper. Targeted stakeholders (learners, teachers, and developers) provided valuable insights on the capacity of the architecture to efficiently facilitate tool orchestration during the realization of a flexible IMS-LD based course. Additionally, limitations of IMS-LD are discussed and suggestions are made on how to tackle these constraints and increase flexibility during tool orchestration in collaborative learning deployment.

Combined architectural framework for the selection of architectures using ATAM, FAHP and CBAM

Software architecture is the framework for all the technical decisions and as such has a tremendous impact on product cost and quality. It is always cost-effective to evaluate software quality as early as possible in the system development life cycle. Software architecture should be designed such that it reflects business goals and quality attributes (QAs) of the system for which the architecture is being designed, and architecture evaluation methods enable us to evaluate how well they are reflected in the designed architecture. The widely used architecture evaluation methods are the architectural trade-off analysis method (ATAM) and the cost benefit analysis method (CBAM). ATAM assists architects in identifying trade-offs among QAs and identifying risks when they design architecture. CBAM helps architects select architectures that are optimal for a given requirement during its evolution by calculating economical trade-offs based on the benefits and costs. Owing to the uncertainty in the judgement for quality attributes in the conventional AHP used in ATAM, a fuzzy-based quantitative evaluation framework for accessing quality attributes is developed to facilitate the selection of the underlying architectures. This software architecture evaluation framework addresses the competing objectives of cost minimisation and quality maximisation between different architectural options.

Combined architectural framework for the selection of architectures using ATAM, FAHP and CBAM

Software architecture is the framework for all the technical decisions and as such has a tremendous impact on product cost and quality. It is always cost-effective to evaluate software quality as early as possible in the system development life cycle. Software architecture should be designed such that it reflects business goals and quality attributes QAs of the system for which the architecture is being designed, and architecture evaluation methods enable us to evaluate how well they are reflected in the designed architecture. The widely used architecture evaluation methods are the architectural trade-off analysis method ATAM and the cost benefit analysis method CBAM. ATAM assists architects in identifying trade-offs among QAs and identifying risks when they design architecture. CBAM helps architects select architectures that are optimal for a given requirement during its evolution by calculating economical trade-offs based on the benefits and costs. Owing to the uncertainty in the judgement for quality attributes in the conventional AHP used in ATAM, a fuzzy-based quantitative evaluation framework for accessing quality attributes is developed to facilitate the selection of the underlying architectures. This software architecture evaluation framework addresses the competing objectives of cost minimisation and quality maximisation between different architectural options.

Evaluating REST architectures—Approach, tooling and guidelines

Architectural decisions determine the ability of the implemented system to satisfy functional and quality attribute requirements. The Representational State Transfer (REST) architectural style has been extensively used recently for integrating services and applications. Its adoption to build SOA-based distributed systems brings several benefits, but also poses new challenges and risks. Particularly important among those risks are failures to effectively address quality attribute requirements such as security, reliability, and performance. A proved efficient technique to identify and help mitigate those risks is the architecture evaluation. In this paper we propose an approach, tooling, and guidelines to aid architecture evaluation activities in REST-based systems. These guidelines can be systematically used along with evaluation methods to reason about design considerations and tradeoffs. To demonstrate how the guidelines can help architecture evaluators, we present a proof of concept describing how to use the guidelines in an ATAM (Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method) evaluation. We also present the results of a survey conducted with industry specialists who have performed architecture evaluations in real world REST-based systems in order to gauge the suitability and utility of the proposed guidelines. Finally, the paper describes a Web tool developed to facilitate the use of the evaluation guidelines.

Toward Agile Architecture: Insights from 15 Years of ATAM Data

Agile teams strive to balance short-term feature development with longer-term quality concerns. These evolutionary approaches often hit a complexity wall' from the cumulative effects of unplanned changes, resulting in unreliable, poorly performing software. So, the agile community is refocusing on approaches to address architectural concerns. Researchers analyzed quality attribute concerns from 15 years of Architecture Trade-Off Analysis Method data, gathered from 31 projects. Modifiability was the dominant concern across all project types; performance, availability, and interoperability also received considerable attention. For IT projects, a relatively new quality-deployability-emerged as a key concern. The study results provide insights for agile teams allocating architecture-related tasks to iterations. For example, teams can use these results to create checklists for release planning or retrospectives to help assess whether to address a given quality to support future needs. This article is part of a special issue on Software Architecture.

A case study on Service-Oriented Architecture for Serious Games

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a set of practices for architectural design of software that exploits services as loosely coupled components orchestrated to deliver various functionalities. The SOA paradigm is not well established in the Serious Games (SG) domain, but it is expected to provide benefits, particularly in reducing the conceptual and technological complexity of the development. In this paper, we propose and study the application of a SOA approach to SG development. We have used the SOA approach to develop an adaptive Serious Game for teaching basic elements of probability to high school and entry-level university students, called The Journey. Details of the architecture implementation are offered, as well as the results of an evaluation of the system using the Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM). Based on our experience, we argue that the SOA approach can make SG development shorter, more flexible and more focused.

Validating a model-driven software architecture evaluation and improvement method: A family of experiments

ContextSoftware architectures should be evaluated during the early stages of software development in order to verify whether the non-functional requirements (NFRs) of the product can be fulfilled. This activity is even more crucial in software product line (SPL) development, since it is also necessary to identify whether the NFRs of a particular product can be achieved by exercising the variation mechanisms provided by the product line architecture or whether additional transformations are required. These issues have motivated us to propose QuaDAI, a method for the derivation, evaluation and improvement of software architectures in model-driven SPL development. ObjectiveWe present in this paper the results of a family of four experiments carried out to empirically validate the evaluation and improvement strategy of QuaDAI. MethodThe family of experiments was carried out by 92 participants: Computer Science Master’s and undergraduate students from Spain and Italy. The goal was to compare the effectiveness, efficiency, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and intention to use with regard to participants using the evaluation and improvement strategy of QuaDAI as opposed to the Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM). ResultsThe main result was that the participants produced their best results when applying QuaDAI, signifying that the participants obtained architectures with better values for the NFRs faster, and that they found the method easier to use, more useful and more likely to be used. The results of the meta-analysis carried out to aggregate the results obtained in the individual experiments also confirmed these results. ConclusionsThe results support the hypothesis that QuaDAI would achieve better results than ATAM in the experiments and that QuaDAI can be considered as a promising approach with which to perform architectural evaluations that occur after the product architecture derivation in model-driven SPL development processes when carried out by novice software evaluators.