Lightweight consistency checking for advancing continuous model-based development in industry

Abstract

For the development of modern software-intensive systems, a large number of development artifacts are created and maintained to design and implement their intended structure and behavior. In this thesis, we consider continuous model-based development settings in which models and other development artifacts are developed incrementally, in short development cycles. Inconsistencies between these development artifacts occur continuously throughout the system's development and maintenance, due to the incremental nature of the development of these artifacts. However, when not known and never resolved, such inconsistencies may ultimately cause failures in developed systems. Therefore, consistency checking across development artifacts is often desirable. Consistency checking approaches face challenges such as adoption in existing engineering settings, the potential informality and incompleteness of models and other development artifacts, as well as the need for shorter development cycles. We show a tight coupling between introducing short development cycles and the need for increased support for consistency checking across models and other development artifacts. From a surveyed set of industrial settings, we identify the need for lightweight consistency-checking approaches. Four aspects that make a consistency checking approach lightweight are formulated on the basis of the surveyed industrial settings. We then study specific challenges to developing consistency checks in four concrete industrial settings. We summarize our experiences in these settings in reference schemas showing the steps of creation and adoption of lightweight consistency checks from various starting points. In summary, this thesis presents contributions to lightweight consistency checking in industrial settings and ultimately aims to facilitate the adoption of continuous model-based development