An Evaluation of Quantitative Non-Functional Requirements Assurance Using ArchiMate

Abstract

Goal-oriented NFR (Non-Functional Requirement) assurance approaches were used to qualitatively evaluate software architectures. Assurance cases using quantitative method have not been applied to evaluate NFR assurance for software architectures. This paper presents a system architecture evaluation method which is able to conduct quantitative NFR assurance evaluation for system architecture through ArchiMate. The paper also proposes an algorithm to automate the quantitative evaluation process. A questionnaire survey among software engineers and a case study on a vehicular safety monitor system were carried out to verify the necessity of the method. Additionally, we conducted an experimental design with 18 samples divided into 2 groups with the goal of comparing how the independent variables affect the dependent variables. The results of the experiment demonstrate that the proposed method achieves better NFR evaluation effect than the traditional approach. Moreover, compared with the traditional approach, the proposed method shortens the time for NFR evaluation. The proposed method is expected to be used at the early stage of software development projects for system NFR development, such as requirements analysis, system architecture design and system modeling. At present, the method has been applied by software engineers in a practical software project.

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