ArchiTech: tool support for NFR-guided architectural decision-making

© 2012 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes,creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Researchers from requirements engineering and software architecture had emphasized the importance of NonFunctional Requirements and their influence in the architectural design process. To improve this process we have designed a tool, ArchiTech, which aims to support architects during the design process by suggesting alternative architectural decisions that can improve some types of non-functional requirements in a particular project, and facilitate the reuse of architectural knowledge shared between projects of the same architectural domain (e.g., web-based applications).Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft

Development of service-oriented architectures using model-driven development : a mapping study

Context: Model-Driven Development (MDD) and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) are two challenging research areas in software engineering. MDD is about improving software development whilst SOA is a service-based conceptual development style, therefore investigating the available proposals in the literature to use MDD when developing SOA may be insightful. However, no studies have been found with this purpose. Objective: This work aims at assessing the state of the art in MDD for SOA systems. It mainly focuses on: what are the characteristics of MDD approaches that support SOA; what types of SOA are supported; how do they handle non-functional requirements. Method: We conducted a mapping study following a rigorous protocol. We identified the representative set of venues that should be included in the study. We applied a search string over the set of selected venues. As result, 129 papers were selected and analysed (both frequency analysis and correlation analysis) with respect to the defined classification criteria derived from the research questions. Threats to validity were identified and mitigated whenever possible. Results: The analysis allows us to answer the research questions. We highlight: (1) predominance of papers from Europe and written by researchers only; (2) predominance of top-down transformation in software development activities; (3) inexistence of consolidated methods; (4) significant percentage of works without tool support; (5) SOA systems and service compositions more targeted than single services and SOA enterprise systems; (6) limited use of metamodels; (7) very limited use of NFRs; and (8) limited application in real cases. Conclusion: This mapping study does not just provide the state of the art in the topic, but also identifies several issues that deserve investigation in the future, for instance the need of methods for activities other than software development (e.g., migration) or the need of conducting more real case studies.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

The WildTech Experience : a Playful Installation for Walking Through the Outcomes of a One-Month Backpacking Study

Here we present a playful installation that will allow DIS attendees to (literally) walk through the data produced during a situated design research study where we explored how to design technology for joyful and caring human-nature interactions. Our study unfolded as a one-month backpacking adventure where a researcher engaged 200+ backpackers from 35+ nationalities. While hiking, the researcher co-experienced the nature with other nature-goers, facilitated discussions on the human-nature-technology interplay, and co-imagined how future innovations might make that interplay more joyful and caring. He documented those radically situated engagements in different ways, including quick drawings and short writings, a reflexive notebook, Instagram stories, or photos and videos, among others. Our installation will allow DIS attendees to navigate those data in a way that is both playful, situated, and inspirational - putting themselves into the researcher's boots and getting a more intimate sense of both how the study felt and what it yielded.Peer reviewe

Extending Cloud Management Tools at the IaaS and PaaS Layers for Cloud Interoperabitliy

This project explores interoperability at the IaaS and PaaS layers of the Cloud Computing stack by contributing to two ongoing European research projects: Cloud4SOA and OPTIMIS. The contributions consist on connecting the platforms provided by both projects to new Cloud providers

The three-layer architectural pattern applied to plug-in-based architectures : the Eclipse case

The process of designing a software architecture using different kinds of components is often challenging. Different designs support some quality attributes while damaging others; therefore, trade-off analysis is needed to make informed decisions. Moreover, analysis made in theory needs to be complemented with observations in practice, especially when using a particular set of technologies to implement the system. In this paper, we present a particular instance of this problem. We study how the Three-Layer architectural pattern may be developed using plug-ins. We compare two extreme alternatives according to several representative scenarios and their impact in some quality attributes. Then, we apply this theoretical knowledge to a case study, the implementation of a plug-in-based tool for managing architectural knowledge using Eclipse. We report some unexpected difficulties found that forced us to adapt the theoretical solution into an operative architecture.Peer Reviewe

ArchiTech: tool support for NFR-guided architectural decision-making

© 2012 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes,creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Researchers from requirements engineering and software architecture had emphasized the importance of NonFunctional Requirements and their influence in the architectural design process. To improve this process we have designed a tool, ArchiTech, which aims to support architects during the design process by suggesting alternative architectural decisions that can improve some types of non-functional requirements in a particular project, and facilitate the reuse of architectural knowledge shared between projects of the same architectural domain (e.g., web-based applications).Peer Reviewe

The three-layer architectural pattern applied to plug-in-based architectures : the Eclipse case

The process of designing a software architecture using different kinds of components is often challenging. Different designs support some quality attributes while damaging others; therefore, trade-off analysis is needed to make informed decisions. Moreover, analysis made in theory needs to be complemented with observations in practice, especially when using a particular set of technologies to implement the system. In this paper, we present a particular instance of this problem. We study how the Three-Layer architectural pattern may be developed using plug-ins. We compare two extreme alternatives according to several representative scenarios and their impact in some quality attributes. Then, we apply this theoretical knowledge to a case study, the implementation of a plug-in-based tool for managing architectural knowledge using Eclipse. We report some unexpected difficulties found that forced us to adapt the theoretical solution into an operative architecture.Peer Reviewe

Development of service-oriented architectures using model-driven development : a mapping study

Context: Model-Driven Development (MDD) and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) are two challenging research areas in software engineering. MDD is about improving software development whilst SOA is a service-based conceptual development style, therefore investigating the available proposals in the literature to use MDD when developing SOA may be insightful. However, no studies have been found with this purpose. Objective: This work aims at assessing the state of the art in MDD for SOA systems. It mainly focuses on: what are the characteristics of MDD approaches that support SOA; what types of SOA are supported; how do they handle non-functional requirements. Method: We conducted a mapping study following a rigorous protocol. We identified the representative set of venues that should be included in the study. We applied a search string over the set of selected venues. As result, 129 papers were selected and analysed (both frequency analysis and correlation analysis) with respect to the defined classification criteria derived from the research questions. Threats to validity were identified and mitigated whenever possible. Results: The analysis allows us to answer the research questions. We highlight: (1) predominance of papers from Europe and written by researchers only; (2) predominance of top-down transformation in software development activities; (3) inexistence of consolidated methods; (4) significant percentage of works without tool support; (5) SOA systems and service compositions more targeted than single services and SOA enterprise systems; (6) limited use of metamodels; (7) very limited use of NFRs; and (8) limited application in real cases. Conclusion: This mapping study does not just provide the state of the art in the topic, but also identifies several issues that deserve investigation in the future, for instance the need of methods for activities other than software development (e.g., migration) or the need of conducting more real case studies.Peer Reviewe