Evaluating Product Line Architectures: Methods and Techniques

Summary form only given. Good software architecture is one of the key factors in successfully developing and evolving a system or a family of systems. Software architecture provides the key framework for the earliest design decisions taken to achieve functional and quality requirements. In addition, it has a profound influence on project organizations' functioning and structure. Poor architecture usually results in project inefficiencies, poor communication, and poor decision making. Software architecture for a family of systems also helps identify the commonality among different systems and explicitly document variability. Since software architecture plays a significant role in the life of a system, it is important to evaluate a system's architecture as early as possible. Architecture evaluation is considered one of the most important and effective techniques of addressing quality related issues at the software architecture level and mitigating architectural risks. Moreover, architecture evaluation sessions are an effective means of sharing and capturing architecture design rationale, reasoning behind architecture design decisions. This tutorial highlights the benefits and challenges in evaluating software architectures. It discusses theoretical and practical concepts underpinning some of the well-known scenario-based architecture evaluation methods and various approaches to characterize quality attributes using scenarios. The use of the presented methods, techniques, and tools will be demonstrated with a case study based on an industrial project.