Towards a Dynamic Model for Requirements Handling in Software Architecture Configuration Management

Abstract

Abstract-Nowadays the role of software architecture is obvious. Both complex requirements and non-deterministic chang ing environments lead software architecture to face with problems for coverage of requirements and environments. Consequently, the configuration of the software architec ture is faced with challenges even in run-time. Being able to deal with such problems requires new techniques to be used. In spite of variety of related works performed in this domain, improvements are required in some aspects such as consideration of overlap and contradictory require ments and also effects in dynamic environments. In this paper, a dynamic model is presented for handling chang ing requirements which makes use of the configuration management concepts such as versioning, composition, consistency, construction, and selection; hence the possibility of configuring software architecture in overlapped and contradictory requirements and dynamic environ ments has been provided in the proposed model. The model includes change management and versioning activities for software architecture and its artefacts. The results of performing the proposed model on a case are reported in this paper.Index Terms-Dynamic model, software architecture, requirements handling, configuration management. I. INTRODUCTIONToday the need for interoperability of software systems is of importance more than ever ‫‬ . ‫‬ Therefore satisfaction of special requirements of this domain requires solutions that include identifying and handling quality attributes such as availability, flexibility, etc. One of the most important requirements is the run-time configuration management considered as the most prominent requirement of dynamic environments. Adaptable soft-ware architecture is able to be adjusted in variable environmental conditions [1].Changes can occur at different times, such as: design time, before implementation, or at run-time [2]. Various factors lead to changes in the software architecture, e.g. changing customer needs, need to create new software faster, adding new software features and modifying soft-ware faults during maintenance phase [3]- [5]. That order to fix these changes making use of configuration management and its concepts.The architecture has been integrated with the require ments in such a way that it is impossible to judge which of them Manuscript received November 10, 2014; revised January 7, 2015 came earlier than other [4]. Although there is a relationship between architecture and software requirements, but there are different opinions on the nature of this relationship [3]. In fact, requirements are description of problem but software architecture represents the struc ture of software system that solves the problem with its main elements such as components and connectors. In fact, because of the different nature of the two, there is a gap between them.Despite much work performed in identifying and meeting requirements in the area of configuration management of software architecture, there is still no perfect proven solution...