Architecture traced from requirements by applying a unified methodology

Requirements Engineering establishes the foundation on which the system-to-be should be implemented and gives support for requirements validation and evolution over time. Architectural models have a lower abstraction level than requirements, being closer to the end system, and they must be consistent with defined requirements in order to produce a valid solution. Recently, increased attention has been paid to how to establish and strengthen the relationships between requirements and architectural design. In particular, how the process must encompass the definition of requirements over time and their effects upon a system's architecture. This thesis presents our work in this field. It describes the methodology called ATRIUM (Architecture Traced from RequIrements applying a Unified Methodology) to guide the architecture definition that pays special attention to the functional and non-functional requirements that must be met by the system-to-be. In its definition, the Aspect-Oriented approach has been considered as cornerstone helping to specify properly the detected concerns of the system-to-be. In addition, we should mention that this work follows mainly the guidelines of the domain-oriented proposals. For this reason, customization of Models and Process has been considered mandatory in order to facilitate its application to different domains. In addition, automation has also been used in those tasks that could be error-prone or cumbersome. A tool, called MORPHEUS, which allows the analyst the specification of the different Models and its later exploitation, supports ATRIUM. By means of its exploitation, ATRIUM has been put into practice in a real case study, the EFTCoR project, which has facilitated the validation of the proposal.