An Iterative Framework for Software Architecture Recovery: An Experience Report

Abstract

Abstract. Both architecture recovery and architecture evaluation play an important role in the area of software reverse-engineering. In this paper, we propose and evaluate a framework for incremental and iterative application of automated architecture recovery (using SWAG Kit) and architecture analysis (using SAAM.) We conclude that SWAG Kit helps in generating a low-level architecture that forms the basis of analysis, while SAAM helps in deriving from this a deeply understood conceptual architecture. The process is iterative, where SAAM analysis helps refine the parameters fed to SWAG Kit, in turn leading to a superior architecture for further analysis. We have applied this process to the extraction of the architectures of three open source compression tools, and we report on the strengths and weaknesses of the approach that this case study exposed. Over all, we conclude that the framework allowed us to understand the software architectures more deeply than would have been possible with the software architecture recovery process alone.

Recuperación de Arquitecturas de Software: Un Mapeo Sistemático de la Literatura

“…También se determinó que las técnicas de recuperación más utilizadas son Clustering y la Heurística (ver tabla 9), entendiendo a esta última como la combinación de varias técnicas o la presentación de propuestas originales como: "morder abajo" (Zhang et al, 2009), procesos ligeros (Svetinovic y Godfrey, 2001), conjunto de activos arquitectónicos de dominio (Ivkovic y Godfrey, 2003), recuperación basada en evidencias (Ros y Sangwan, 2011), recuperación incremental (Roy y Graham, 2008), recuperación a partir de trazas de eventos (Cook y Wolf, 1998), recuperación basada en reglas de abstracción (Qiao et al, 2003), recuperación basada en componentes (Anquetil et al, 2009;Sun et al, 2005), recuperación basada en metamodelos (Ran y Lencevicius, 2003), análisis a partir de la interfaz gráfica de usuario (Staiger, 2007) y análisis a partir de XML (Riva y Yang, 2002). Para el caso concreto de la recuperación del comportamiento las técnicas más utilizadas son la heurística y la reflexión.…”

MoDisco: A model driven reverse engineering framework

“…At code-level, GUPRO [44] is a solution, based on a central graph repository plus related queries and algorithms, that offers different visualizations over a given program (via tables, code excerpts, etc.). SWAG Kit [45] is another tool that is more specifically addressing the graphical visualization of complex C/C++ systems. Also, the CodeCrawler visualization tool [46] and more recently CodeCity [47], an advanced 3D graphical visualization tool (both based on the Moose platform, cf.…”

An Abstract Model for Integrated Intrusion Detection and Severity Analysis for Clouds

“…There are a number of methods proposed to perform scenario based evaluation for software architecture. A detailed comparative analysis of these methods has been presented in Roy and Graham (2008). However, these methods can be distinguished based on the quality attributes focused by the method and the number of quality attributes considered by the method.…”

“…flexibility, diversity, security and performance. The choice of ATAM is motivated due to its ability to take into account multiple quality attributes for architectural evaluation whereas other scenario based evaluation methods are mostly focused at one particular quality attribute (Roy & Graham, 2008). For instance, Architectural Level Modifiability Analysis (ALMA) (Bengtsson, Lassing, Bosch, & Vliet, 2004) is envisaged to evaluate the modifiability of the software architecture.…”