Architecture Potential Analysis: A Closer Look inside Architecture Evaluation

Abstract

The share of software in embedded systems has been growing permanently in the recent years. Thus, software architecture as well as its evaluation have become important parts of the development of embedded systems to describe, assess, and assure sound architecture as basis for high quality systems. Furthermore, design space exploration can be based on architecture evaluation. To achieve an efficient exploration process, architectural decisions need to be taken into account as part of the architecture. In this paper, a method for analyzing architecture potential on the basis of dependencies between quality attributes is presented and applied. An explicit representation and correlation of such dependencies provides decision support for architectural concerns. Not only can suboptimal decisions be avoided but rather valuable options are highlighted. Besides the quality of an architecture, knowledge of how to achieve and even improve the quality can be analyzed. The latter is the concern of architecture potential analysis presented in this paper. Furthermore, architectural decisions can be documented and will be traceable and justifiable with respect to the development rationale. The ongoing development process can then be based on dependable and well documented architectural decisions. The predictability of change impacts is increased. Thus, time and costs can be saved by avoiding suboptimal changes.