Changes software architecture

A not-for-profit organization, IEEE is the world's largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. Use of this web site signifies your agreement to the terms and conditions. Metrics of Software Architecture Changes Based on Structural Distance Abstract: Software architecture is an important form of abstraction, representing the overall system structure and the relationship among components.

When software is modified from one version to another, its architecture may change. Software modification involving architectural change is often difficult when the change goes beyond the original architectural design, involving changes to the connectivity of multiple components.

Existing research has looked at architectural change at the level of architecture metrics such as size, complexity, coupling and cohesion, which abstract a particular version of the software in isolation. In this paper, we argue that this level of abstraction is often too high to characterize some interesting aspects of the architectural change process, and propose an approach that takes into account the change in connectivity from version to version of individual components.

In Architecture , nonfunctional decisions are cast and separated by the functional requirements. In Design, functional requirements are accomplished. Architecture serves as a blueprint for a system. It provides an abstraction to manage the system complexity and establish a communication and coordination mechanism among components. It defines a structured solution to meet all the technical and operational requirements, while optimizing the common quality attributes like performance and security.

Further, it involves a set of significant decisions about the organization related to software development and each of these decisions can have a considerable impact on quality, maintainability, performance, and the overall success of the final product.

Software design provides a design plan that describes the elements of a system, how they fit, and work together to fulfill the requirement of the system. To negotiate system requirements, and to set expectations with customers, marketing, and management personnel.

It comes before the detailed design, coding, integration, and testing and after the domain analysis, requirements analysis, and risk analysis. The primary goal of the architecture is to identify requirements that affect the structure of the application. A well-laid architecture reduces the business risks associated with building a technical solution and builds a bridge between business and technical requirements. Software architecture is still an emerging discipline within software engineering.

Lack of analysis methods to predict whether architecture will result in an implementation that meets the requirements. Lack of understanding of the role of software architect and poor communication among stakeholders. A Software Architect provides a solution that the technical team can create and design for the entire application.

Expert in software design, including diverse methods and approaches such as object-oriented design, event-driven design, etc. Lead the development team and coordinate the development efforts for the integrity of the design.

Facilitates the technical work among team members and reinforcing the trust relationship in the team. Protect the team members from external forces that would distract them and bring less value to the project.

A document or process which ensures functional decomposition is followed, and the form of interfaces is controlled. Quality is a measure of excellence or the state of being free from deficiencies or defects. Quality attributes are the system properties that are separate from the functionality of the system. Implementing quality attributes makes it easier to differentiate a good system from a bad one. Attributes are overall factors that affect runtime behavior, system design, and user experience.

Reflect the structure of a system and organization, directly related to architecture, design, and source code. They are invisible to end-user, but affect the development and maintenance cost, e.