Evolution styles: using architectural knowledge as an evolution driver

Cuesta, Carlos E.; Navarro, Elena; Perry, Dewayne E.; Roda, Cristina

doi:10.1002/smr.1575

Cited by 11 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…This approach is also reminiscent of a recent approach to architecture evolution, namely evolution styles [3,19]. These styles do not depend on a notion of change module (locus), but describe evolution in a similar way, suggesting that this approach can be generalized to many kinds of architectures, including those of SoS.…”

Section: Loci: a Model Of Changementioning

confidence: 94%

See 1 more Smart Citation

On self-adaptation in systems-of-systems

Romay

Cuesta

Fernández‐Sanz

2013

Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Software Engineering for Systems-of-Systems

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Adaptivity and systems-of-systems (SoS) have always had a close relationship, as it is one of their defining features. Moreover, there is a clear similarity between the requirements of a SoS and those of many adaptive systems, such as autonomic and self-adaptive systems. In recent years, this kind of adaptive systems has been carefully studied; however, they often operate at a very different scale, being smaller than a typical SoS. The common nexus between both perspectives seem to be situated at the architectural level: the same adaptive techniques are recursively applied in different strata in a hierarchical composite. Therefore, the principles embodied in adaptive architectures seem to provide a good basis for the definition and description of SoS. This paper relates those principles to the corresponding structures in software evolution, and suggests to coordinate both through a pace layering strategy.

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Section: Loci: a Model Of Changementioning

confidence: 94%

“…Therefore, each stratum should define, not only their own evolution drivers (architectural knowledge [19]), but also their own evolution patterns (again, evolution styles).…”

Section: Strata: a Matter Of Scalementioning

confidence: 99%

On self-adaptation in systems-of-systems

Romay

Cuesta

Fernández‐Sanz

2013

Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Software Engineering for Systems-of-Systems

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“…The search was limited to Title-Abstract-Keywords. Studies [5,12,13,31,32,39,50,53,57,58,69] were returned, and, to the best of our knowledge, they are the only studies on architectural patterns and styles for SoS architectures. We also looked for architectural patterns and styles for self-organizing systems, since they share characteristics of dynamism and emergent behaviors with SoS [16,53,56].…”

Section: Identification Of Mediation Requirements In Sosmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…5a-d. These mediators were abstracted from architectural styles/patterns Observer, Publish-subscribe, reflection, MAPE-K, SOA, centralized architecture, reconfiguration control architecture, contract monitor, pace layering, and evolution styles, which have been utilized in SoS for control, emergent behaviors identification, evolutionary development, and dynamic reconfiguration purposes [12,13,32,50,57,58,69], as described in Table 1. Planner (PD) Also known as Decider, it selects a better configuration plan, confPlan, to be executed by an SoS (or by parts of it).…”

Section: Control Layermentioning

confidence: 99%

Software mediators as first-class entities of systems-of-systems software architectures

2019

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Context: In contrast to traditional software systems that are mostly created from scratch, current software systems are engineered as a junction of systems already in operation. Examples can be found in domains, such as smart cities, crisis and emergency, IoT, big data, industry 4.0, and connected health systems. Most of them can be considered systems-of-systems (SoS), since they refer to alliances of operational and managerial independent software-intensive systems, which are sometimes distributed over different environments. Therefore, SoS software architectures must be dynamic, evolve over time, and support the execution of emergent behaviors to accomplish SoS missions. They must be also designed to enable the connection of heterogeneous systems, making possible their interoperation, communication, coordination, cooperation, and collaboration, most of the times, in a seamless way. Similar challenges have been addressed by using software mediators as architectural entities. However, the application of mediators in SoS has not been properly explored. Goal: This article introduces MediArch, a layered architecture that considers mediators as first-class software entities to be used in the construction of SoS architectures. Our objective is to present evidence about how MediArch's can support the construction of SoS architectures. Methods: The following four steps were conducted to define MediArch: (1) identification of mediation requirements to allow SoS properties; (2) establishment and categorization of twelve types of mediators, for enabling capabilities of communication and control of constituent systems interactions and conversion of heterogeneous messages exchanged through a mediation infrastructure; (3) specification of duties, behaviors, assumptions, and guarantees of mediators; and (4) organization of MediArch in three layers, namely, the constituents & consumer systems layer; the communication, conversion, & coordination layer; and the control layer. This architecture was used as the backbone for the software architectures of two SoS in different domains, namely, flood monitoring system-of-systems (FMSoS), and health-care supportive home system-of-systems (HSH-SoS), for providing evidence on how MediArch supports the architecting process of SoS. Results: MediArch (1) supports the integration of independent constituent systems, (2) provides strategies to manage emergent behaviors, (3) defines different schemes of control authorities, (4) offers elements to support SoS evolution, and (5) promotes the resilience and adaptability of SoS architectures. Conclusions: Although MediArch contributes to the establishment of SoS architectures, some challenges related to performance, resource consumption, security, safety, and non-disruptive reconfigurations must still be overcome.

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“…Previous studies have analyzed the consequences of developing software projects with poor or little architectural documentation. Although architecture documentation is essential to support the development, maintenance, and evolution of software systems , the production of adequate documentation still faces many issues in practice. For instance, in iterative and incremental development (IID) projects , in which budget constraints and tight schedules are common, documentation activities might be considered as low‐priority to favor the development of user‐visible (functional) features.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An optimization‐based tool to support the cost‐effective production of software architecture documentation

Nicoletti

Schiaffino

Díaz-Pace

2015

J Software Evolu Process

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Abstract. Some of the challenges faced by most software projects are tight budget constraints and schedules, which often make managers and developers prioritize the delivery of a functional product over other engineering activities, such as software documentation. In particular, having little or low-quality documentation of the software architecture of a system can have negative consequences for the project, as the architecture is the main container of the key design decisions to fulfill the stakeholders' goals. To further complicate this situation, generating and maintaining architectural documentation is a non-trivial and time-consuming activity. In this context, we present a tool approach that aims at (i) assisting the documentation writer in their tasks and (ii) ensuring a cost-effective documentation process by means of optimization techniques. Our tool, called SADHelper, follows the principle of producing reader-oriented documentation, in order to focus the available, and often limited, resources on generating just enough documentation that satisfies the stakeholders' concerns. The approach was evaluated in two experiments with users of software architecture documents, with encouraging results. These results show evidence that our tool can be useful to reduce the documentation costs and even improve the documentation quality, as perceived by their stakeholders.

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Evolution styles: using architectural knowledge as an evolution driver

Cited by 11 publications

References 46 publications

On self-adaptation in systems-of-systems

On self-adaptation in systems-of-systems

Software mediators as first-class entities of systems-of-systems software architectures

An optimization‐based tool to support the cost‐effective production of software architecture documentation

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