Lightweight Software Architecture Evaluation for Industry: A Comprehensive Review

Abstract

Processes for evaluating software architecture (SA) help to investigate problems and potential risks in SA. It is derived from many studies that proposed a plethora of systematic SA evaluation methods, while industrial practitioners currently refrain from applying them since they are heavyweight. Nowadays, heterogeneous software architectures are organized based on the new infrastructure. Hardware and associated software allow different systems, such as embedded, sensor-based, modern AI, and cloud-based systems, to cooperate efficiently. It brings more complexities to SA evaluation. Alternatively, lightweight architectural evaluation methods have been proposed to satisfy the practitioner’s concerns, but practitioners still do not adopt these methods. This study employs a systematic literature review with a text analysis of SA’s definitions to propose a comparison framework for SA. It identifies lightweight features and factors to improve the architectural evaluation methods among industrial practitioners. The features are determined based on the practitioner’s concerns by analyzing the architecture’s definitions from stakeholders and reviewing architectural evaluation methods. The lightweight factors are acquired by studying the five most commonly used lightweight methods and the Architecture-based Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM), the most well-known heavyweight method. Subsequently, the research addresses these features and factors.

Process Mining Discovery Techniques for Software Architecture Lightweight Evaluation Framework

“…The embedded tool in the SA evaluation framework supports the evaluation's activities toward the automation of analysis within a framework. The tool and technology inside HSAEF is an intrinsic part that fits the framework's functionalities, and structures [1]. This research suggests PM tools and techniques to ingrate with HSAEF.…”

“…In this research, PM is suggested to integrate and adapt to HSAEF as a technique for addressing the targeted quality attributes (security and performance) [33]; however, features and factors were identified by [1]. Despite this progress, the PM's applicability to software engineering has two problems.…”

“…Therefore, there is a need for proper tools and techniques to form a framework with these features and factors. Indeed, the lack of proper tools and techniques to integrate and adapt the addressed features and factors in an evaluation method hinders SA Evaluation Framework's success [1]. The current research tries to solve this issue.…”

“…As a result, Process Mining (PM) is suggested to be applied to the Hypothetical SA Evaluation Framework (HSAEF). HSAEF represents a lightweight evaluation framework [1]. In section two and three, the research reviews PM applications in the software engineering area to identify how PM can be applied to the SA evaluation, then the limitations and challenges are recognized to adapt PM and elicit log files.…”

Rancang Bangun Aplikasi Pencatatan Keuangan Digital Bagi Bumdes

“…Rekayasa kebutuhan perangkat lunak adalah model atau pendekatan sistematis yang secara signifikan dikembangkan para peneliti dalam dekade terakhir (Belfadel, Laval, Bonner Cherifi, & Moalla, 2022) (Franch, Henriksson, Ralyté, & Zdravkovic, 2121) (Redouane, 2021). Arsitektur perangkat lunak dapat dipandang sebagai sekumpulan sistem yang secara komprehensif mencakup interaksi komponen, lingkungan operasional, prinsip desain, fungsionalitas perangkat lunak, dan sering mencakup perspektif perangkat lunak evolusioner masa depan (Sahlabadi, Muniyandi, Shukur, & Qamar, 2022) (Yang, Jiang, Shang, & Norouzi, 2021) (Venters, 2018) (Hasselbring, 2018).…”