Change Impact Analysis In Software Architectures.pdf

The proposed approach for change impact analysis in software architectures is based on the validation of functional requirements. The functional requirements are transformed into a formal behavior description, which states the behavior that must be present or absent in the architecture. If one or more of the formal behavior descriptions fail, the requirements that are not satisfied by the architecture can be identified. Traces between the requirements and architecture are used to identify the components of the architecture that are not satisfying the requirements.

To validate requirements, a simulatable model of the architecture is built based on the architecture description language (AADL). The architecture is annotated with additional properties to specify the behavior of individual components. The simulation of the architecture is performed using the modeling language Alloy, which derives the state space representing the behavior of the architecture. After simulation, it can be asserted whether the architecture satisfies the requirements.

Given the derived state space, satisfaction of functional requirements, and traces from functional requirements to architecture components, change impact analysis is performed. Several guidelines are provided for different activities of this process. The approach is evaluated by performing five change scenarios in an existing project, and the results are discussed.

The proposed approach is promising, but Alloy imposes limitations on the size of the architecture and length of simulation. Alloy is also slow when simulating architectures. Other directions are given for future research.