Steps in an Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method: Quality Attribute Models and Analysis

Abstract : This paper presents some of the steps in an emerging architecture tradeoff analysis method (ATAM). The objective of the method is to provide a principled way to understand a software architecture's fitness with respect to multiple competing quality attributes: (1) modifiability, (2) security, (3) performance, availability, and (4) so forth. These attributes can interact or conflict-improving one often comes at the price of worsening one or more of the others, thus it is necessary to trade off among multiple software quality attributes at the time the software architecture of a system is specified, and before the system is developed. This report illustrates typical quality attribute models, analyses, and tradeoffs using a small real-time industrial application.

[1]  Kishor S. Trivedi.  Probability and Statistics with Reliability, Queuing, and Computer Science Applications , 1984 .

[2]  Connie U. Smith,et al.  Software Performance Engineering: A Case Study Including Performance Comparison with Design Alternatives , 1993, IEEE Trans. Software Eng..

[3]  Mark Klein,et al.  A practitioner's handbook for real-time analysis - guide to rate monotonic analysis for real-time systems , 1993, The Kluwer international series in engineering and computer science.

[4]  Mario R. Barbacci,et al.  Principles for Evaluating the Quality Attributes of a Software Architecture , 1997 .

[5]  Ken Shumate,et al.  Designing large real-time systems with Ada , 1988, CACM.

[6]  Sheldon M. Ross,et al.  Introduction to probability models , 1975 .

[7]  Sheldon M. Ross,et al.  Introduction to Probability Models (4th ed.). , 1990 .

[8]  Paul Clements,et al.  Software architecture in practice , 1999, SEI series in software engineering.

[9]  G. Kerr.  Quality factors. , 1988, Health physics.

[10]  Bo Ingvar Sandén,et al.  Entity-life modeling and structured analysis in real-time software design—a comparison , 1989, CACM.

[11]  Connie U. Smith,et al.  Performance Engineering of Software Systems , 1990, SIGMETRICS Perform. Evaluation Rev..

[12]  Marco Spuri,et al.  Implications of Classical Scheduling Results for Real-Time Systems , 1995, Computer.

[13]  Leonard J. Bass,et al.  Scenario-Based Analysis of Software Architecture , 1996, IEEE Softw..

[14]  William L. Maxwell,et al.  Theory of scheduling , 1967 .