Architectural thinking and modeling with the Architects' Workbench

Abstract

Collecting and organizing all of the architectural information for a system is a challenge faced by information technology (IT) architects. Transforming that information into models of a viable architecture and keeping associated work products consistent and up to date is an even greater challenge. Despite this, model-centric architectural methods are not as widely adopted or as closely followed as they could be, partly due to a lack of appropriate tools. The Architects' Workbench (AWB) is a prototype tool that addresses these problems and supports the creative process of architectural thinking and modeling. This paper presents key AWB innovations and discusses how their design was motivated by insights into architectural work and feedback from IT architects. We describe the design of AWB itself as a metamodel-driven and methodbased tool, and we report on experience from the use of AWB in production environments.

Two controlled experiments on model-based architectural decision making

“…This can be explained by the fact that often the participants of the control group reused parts of the pattern documentations to fill in some ADD template fields (e.g., Argumentation/Implications) which led to longer ADD textsunlike for the experiment group these documentations provided the main source for decision support. As mentioned in Section 4, each documented ADD was evaluated by two independent experts using a 10-point Likert scale ranging from very low quality (1) to very high quality (10). Likert scales are treated in the literature as both ordinal (e.g., [44]) and interval (e.g., [45]) scales.…”

“…A few reusable ADD models and related tools that support their management (such as [10]) have been evaluated in real-life contexts. For instance, Zimmermann et al's ADD model consisting of 300 ADDs from the SOA domain covering various aspects such as Web service integration and transaction management has been used by practitioner communities and in industrial projects [8].…”

Using tagging to identify and organize concerns during pre-requirements analysis

“…One way to do this is to copy the text (eventually, import the documents) into BITKit, and then use the markup-and-model approach pioneered by Architects' workbench [1]: select a phrase and instruct BITKit to make an item whose initial title is that phrase. This approach has the advantage of providing enough information to the tool through the very creation gesture that traceability from the created item back to the text in the document can be maintained.…”

“…Before a decision is even made to embark on a software development project, some form of business analysis is conducted. 1 Its goal is to gain understanding of the relevant area of the business, including its problems and opportunities, and to propose a roadmap for improvement. If a roadmap involving development or enhancement of software systems is accepted, then requirements analysis begins.…”

“…Information gathered and organized during the business analysis phase is of great importance during requirements analysis, and is included in the information linked to requirements by pre-requirements traceability [7]. 1 When the need for a software system is assumed up front, the business analysis might be performed as part of requirements analysis. For example, enterprise modeling, domain modeling and behavioral modeling of the existing system are considered part of requirements engineering [9].…”