Defining execution viewpoints for a large and complex software-intensive system

Abstract

An execution view is an important asset for developing large and complex systems. An execution view helps practitioners to describe, analyze, and communicate what a software system does at runtime and how it does it. In this paper, we present an approach to define execution viewpoints for an existing large and complex software-intensive system. This definition approach enables the customization and extension of a set of predefined viewpoints to address the requirements of a specific development organization. The application of this approach has helped us to identify a set of execution viewpoints that we are currently using to construct execution views of an MRI system, a large softwareintensive system in the healthcare domain.

A generic framework for deriving architecture modeling methods for large-scale software-intensive systems

“…Buckl et al [20] proposed a formal definition of concepts and their relationships in AD to refine ISO/IEC 42010:2007 [21]. Callo-Arias et al [22] proposed a conceptual model to define execution viewpoint, which consists of a set of models describing and documenting what a software system does at runtime and how it behaviors, for large and complex softwareintensive systems. Clements et al [23] defined the concepts such as Architecture View, Stakeholder, Concern and Architecture Description Language, for documenting software architectures.…”

“…For Req 2, Call-Arias et al and Clements et al respectively provided a method to define an execution viewpoint and a way to choosing architecture view(s). All existing works seem to be not supporting Req 3, except [22] which partly supports as execution viewpoints defined using [22] can be reused or cited to construct views in other organization. Comparing with these works, GCVL framework fully supports the three requirements.…”

“…Moreover, as discussed in Section 5, a GCVL-based AMM can be extended easily to meet new modeling goals. [20] Fully Unsupported Unsupported Callo-Arias et al [22] Partly Partly Partly Clements et al [23] Fully Partly Unsupported GCVL framework Fully Fully Fully…”

“…Though the international standard ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 [1] and Buckl [20] provided conceptual models for architecture description (AD) in general, it is still difficult for modelers to devise such AMMs without guidelines or a process to guide. Callo-Arias [22] and Clements [23] respectively provided guidelines to define an execution viewpoint and to choose architecture view(s). However, these guidelines are not enough to guide modelers to derive a complete AMM in their domain.…”