Architecture design decision maps for software sustainability

In spite of the exciting hype around sustainability, we are very much lacking suitable instruments to design software-intensive systems that are sustainable and enable sustainability goals. To fill this gap, we advocate the treatment of sustainability as a software quality property and defined a software sustainability assessment method that helps to make sustainability-driven design decisions. The method essentially relies on the definition of so-called ``decision maps'', i.e. views aimed at framing the architecture design concerns around the four sustainability dimensions mentioned above - technical, economic, social and environmental sustainability. In this context, this paper presents the notion of decision map. We then use a number of illustrative examples extracted from industrial projects, to summarize our lessons learned and reflections with general observations and future research directions, with the goal to spark a discussion in the research community

TINA as a virtual market place for telecommunication and information services: the VITAL experiment

The VITAL (Validation of Integrated Telecommunication Architectures for the Long-Term) project has defined, implemented and demonstrated an open distributed telecommunication architecture (ODTA) for deploying, managing and using a set of heterogeneous multimedia, multi-party, and mobility services. The architecture was based on the latest specifications released by TINA-C. The architecture was challenged in a set of trials by means of a heterogeneous set of applications. Some of the applications were developed within the project from scratch, while some others focused on integrating commercially available applications. The applications were selected in such a way as to assure full coverage of the architecture implementation and reflect a realistic use of it. The VITAL experience of refining and implementing TINA specifications and challenging the resulting platform by a heterogeneous set of services has proven the openness, flexibility and reusability of TINA. This paper describes the VITAL approach when choosing the different services and how they challenge and interact with the architecture, focusing especially on the service architecture and the Ret reference point definitions. The VITAL adjustments and enhancements to the TINA architecture are described. This paper contributes to proving that the TINA-based VITAL ODTA allows for easy and cost-effective development and deployment of advanced end-user and operator services, and can indeed act as the basis for a virtual market place for telecommunications service

Systematic literature review of domain-oriented specification techniques

Context: The popularity of domain-specific languages and model driven development has made the tacit use of domain knowledge in system development more tangible. Our vision is a development process where a (software) system specification is based on multiple domain models, and where the specification method is built from cognitive concepts, presumably derived from natural language. Goal: To realize this vision, we evaluate and reflect upon the existing literature in domain-oriented specification techniques. Method: We designed and conducted a systematic literature review on domain-oriented specification techniques. Results: We identified 53 primary studies, populated the classification framework for each study, and summarized our findings per classification aspect. We found many approaches for creating domain models or domain-specific languages. Observations include: (i) most methods are defined incompletely; (ii) none offers methodical support for the use of domain models or domain-specific languages to create other specifications; (iii) there are specification techniques to integrate models in general, but no study offers methodical support for multiple domain models. Conclusion: The results indicate which topics need further research and which can instead be reused to realize our vision on system development. Editor\u27s note: Open Science material was validated by the Journal of Systems and Software Open Science Board

Software Architecture Assessment for Sustainability: A Case Study

Software Architecture (SA) assessment provides an analysis of the quality of a high-level view of software-intensive systems, serving as a quality assurance mechanism. Sustainability is a crucial quality for digital ecosystems and as such, it presents assessment challenges due to the multi-dimensional nature of sustainability. This study addresses the challenge of sustainability assessment in SA. Due to a lack of guided sustainability assessment methods, we use an SA evaluation blueprint which we tailored for sustainability assessment. We use a blend of experience-based and quantitative assessment techniques for the assessment of design decision options. The SA assessment is performed on a case study integrating a SaaS-based solution, a learning management system called Canvas, within an educational institute. Our assessment provides an overview of trade-offs between design decision options.We use elements from an open-source toolkit (SAF Toolkit) and a Sustainability Impact Score (SIS) to identify the possible trade-offs and sustainability impacts across different sustainability dimensions. The assessment results identify the trade-offs between QAs and sustainability dimensions (mainly environmental) per design option. This information can help architects make informed decisions about sustainable design choices. Our evaluation method is designed to allow for the assessment of other SAs