A Rationale-based Model for Architecture Design Reasoning

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7.2. An empirical study to validate the AREL model Table 7.3: Empirical study - Question 3 Results Documentation Memory Deduction Guess Responses 1 4 4 5 Table 7.3 shows that most experts could not find the answers from the documentation but instead they make guesses and deduction of why the system was designed this way. Most experts commented that this is a complex issue which involved a number of intertwined design. Some of the experts recalled the design features of this part of the system from memory and deduction. When the AREL diagram was shown to them, some experts noted that this design might have been overly complicated. Some of them suggested that perhaps a synchronous approach should be reconsidered to see what the system architecture could look like and make comparisons with the the existing design to check their relative benefits. One expert noted that the complexity issues might arise with the synchronous design and further architecture explorations are required to assess the two alternatives. The responses from the experts have highlighted the fact that although the system had been in production for many years, there are no consensus as to whether this design is the most appropriate one. This is because the reasons for choosing the asynchronous design instead of the synchronous design had not been explored or tested fully. It was suggested by the experts that AREL could provide added value to the architecture design process through its explicit reasoning representation in that comparisons could be made to check and verify the design. Question 4 - MCP connection We ask the expert why a single MCP process handles a single bank connection only. The design reasoning is described in Section 7.1.5. The experts found in the design specification some description of how this part of the system was designed, which gave some hints of the reason behind the design. The experts made guesses (see Table 7.4) based on the hints they gathered and what they thought might have been the reasons. The experts guessed that it was to do with the simplification of the design and security issues. None of the answers were specific. Table 7.4: Empirical study - Question 4 Results Documentation Memory Deduction Guess Responses 3 4 1 6 127
7.2. An empirical study to validate the AREL model When the AREL diagram was shown to the experts. It was immediately obvious that the online banking requirement is the driver of this decision and that the security checking is an important factor in this design decision. As such, AREL serves its purpose well by explicitly depicting the motivational reasons of the design and the design rationale. Expert assessment of AREL The last part of the interview is to have the experts assess the AREL model. The intention is to seek qualitative opinion on whether AREL would be useful in practice, which is one of the primary objectives of this thesis. Two questions were asked to see whether the experts would consider using the AREL for modelling architecture design decisions. The first question asks the experts whether AREL is useful in helping the experts reason with the EFT design. Table 7.5 shows the responses. Out of the 9 experts, 44.4% think that AREL is very useful (rating 5), another 44.4% think that it is useful (rating 4), 11.1% is neutral (rating 3). The result indicates that the experts find that AREL can help them understand the design reasoning. Table 7.5: AREL Usefulness in Supporting Architecture Design Reasoning 1 2 3 4 5 Not Helpful Very Helpful Responses 0 0 1 4 4 Percentages 0 0 11.1 44.4 44.4 The next question asks the expert whether they would capture design rationale with AREL given reasonable project schedule and resources. The results are shown in Table 7.6. 55.6% of the experts indicated that they would capture design rationale with AREL. 44.4% of the experts indicated that they would possibly capture design rationale with AREL. The result shows that there is a very strong intention for the experts to capture design rationale. There are none who indicated that they wouldn’t capture design rationale and there were none that do not know if they would capture design rationale. It means that all of the experts find AREL useful and are willing to use it in practice. Table 7.6: Experts’ Willingness to Use AREL No Don’t Know Possibly Yes Responses 0 0 4 5 Percentages 0 0 44.4 55.6 The experts were then asked to provide comments, both positive and negative, about the AREL method. The experts commented on AREL with respect to designing systems and they also commented on the other issues that are design knowledge related. The following are the comments gathered in the interviews. 128
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A Rationale-based Model for Archite
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maintenance. These techniques can h
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Declaration This thesis contains no
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2.2.6 DoD Architecture Framework .
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5.4.6 Risk assessment in architectu
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8.2 The architecture rationalisatio
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12.2 Contributions . . . . . . . .
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6.10 ≪AR≫ and ≪AAR≫ Stereot
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11.13A Process to Synchronise Chang
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5.13 Design Rationale Helps Evaluat
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that architecture design is highly
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1.2. Research motivations and resea
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1.2. Research motivations and resea
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1.4. Structure of the thesis the ch
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Part I Problem Analysis 10
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2.1. Industry practice of design ra
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2.2. Architecture frameworks and de
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Chapter 3 Related work in design ra
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3.2. Why do we need design rational
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3.2. Why do we need design rational
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3.3. Existing methods for capturing
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3.4. Other related studies 3.3.7 Qu
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3.4. Other related studies evolutio
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3.5. How well design rationale meth
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3.5. How well design rationale meth
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Chapter 4 Research methodology and
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4.1. Software engineering research
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4.2. The chosen research and valida
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Part II Architecture Design Rationa
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on a regular basis. Their inputs ha
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5.1. Architecture rationale in the
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5.2. Survey methodology data collec
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5.3. Survey findings experience). I
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5.3. Survey findings Table 5.1: Fre
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5.3. Survey findings Business Goals
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5.3. Survey findings 5.3.5 Document
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5.3. Survey findings Table 5.8 summ
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5.3. Survey findings We used Spearm
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5.3. Survey findings previous desig
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5.4. Discussion of findings Since t
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Page 99 and 100: Part III The Representation and App
Page 101 and 102: 6.1. A conceptual model for design
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Page 107 and 108: 6.3. Architecture elements Figure 6
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Page 115 and 116: 6.5. The extended AREL To prevent c
Page 117 and 118: 6.6. A UML representation of AREL a
Page 119 and 120: 6.6. A UML representation of AREL a
Page 121 and 122: 6.7. AREL usability AE by ≪AEsupe
Page 123 and 124: 6.8. Summary The AREL model is exte
Page 125 and 126: 7.1. The EFT system reasoning, a co
Page 127 and 128: 7.1. The EFT system The processing
Page 129 and 130: 7.1. The EFT system not chosen beca
Page 131 and 132: 7.1. The EFT system Figure 7.5: Int
Page 133 and 134: 7.1. The EFT system sequence checki
Page 135 and 136: 7.1. The EFT system Figure 7.7: Dec
Page 137 and 138: 7.1. The EFT system Therefore, in a
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Page 141 and 142: 7.2. An empirical study to validate
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Page 153 and 154: 8.1. Background Based on these assu
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10.3. Reasoning about change impact
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10.5. Summary design object may cau
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11.1. Capturing architecture design
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11.1. Capturing architecture design
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11.2. Checking AREL models Figure 1
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11.3. Tracing AREL models Figure 11
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11.4. Analysing AREL with BBN • S
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11.5. Limitations Figure 11.13: A P
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Chapter 12 Conclusions 12.1 Summary
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12.2. Contributions reasoning metho
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12.2. Contributions implementations
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12.3. Future work architecture deci
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12.3. Future work to examine the co
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BIBLIOGRAPHY [10] B. W. Boehm, Soft
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BIBLIOGRAPHY [37] A. Eden and R. Ka
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BIBLIOGRAPHY [62] J. D. Herbsleb an
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BIBLIOGRAPHY [89] N. Lassing, D. Ri
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BIBLIOGRAPHY [115] D. L. Parnas,
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BIBLIOGRAPHY [142] Z. Simsek and J.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY [167] W. F. Tichy, N.
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Appendix A AREL Tool User Manual 1
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4.1 AREL Check Model When the Check
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4.2 AREL Model Tracing AREL model t
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Figure 9 - result of downward trace
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To initiate the graph’s creation,
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onto the diagram 14 Assign values t
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Useful Definitions The following ar
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) Some projects only c) Not at all
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19. I revisit architecture design d
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Complaint Procedure If you have any
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Privacy Protection Only investigato
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B. Exploring design reasoning. 1. W
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3. Why does the system use asynchro
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C. General Comments on AREL Modelli
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IEEE Computer Society Press. A. Tan
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A Rationale-based Model for Architecture Design Reasoning

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