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A Rationale-based Model for Architecture Design Reasoning

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Chapter 11<br />

Tool implementation<br />

In the previous chapters, we have described the AREL representation and its applications<br />

to support architecture design and maintenance. This chapter describes the tools used<br />

supporting these activities. The AREL tool-set captures AE, AR, AAR and their relationships<br />

described in Chapter 6. It can be used to support the ARM process since it<br />

captures the QLR and QNR (see Chapter 8). It supports the traceability methods (see<br />

Chapter 9) and change impact analysis using BBN (see Chapter 10).<br />

In an empirical study described in Section 7.2.4, expert designers have indicated that<br />

the success of AREL would depend on its tool implementation. First of all, they think that<br />

a graphical tool is important to represent such relationships. They suggest that without a<br />

graphical tool, it would be ineffective to use AREL because of the complex relationships<br />

that might exist in a large system architecture. They further suggested that the tool must<br />

be able to retrieve the in<strong>for</strong>mation by allowing architects to specify the selection criteria<br />

<strong>for</strong> in<strong>for</strong>mation retrieval.<br />

In addressing these needs, we have established four objectives when building the toolset<br />

to support AREL implementation: (a) the design tool should use commercially supported<br />

software so that it can integrate with architecture design processes in the software<br />

industry; (b) the graphical notation must be an industry standard and as such we have<br />

chosen to use UML; (c) a tight integration of the tool-set <strong>for</strong> easy learning and application;<br />

(d) the tools must support the key features of the AREL applications.<br />

The tool-set to support the AREL applications comprises of three components, Enterprise<br />

Architect [150], Netica [107], and our custom-built AREL Tool. Together they <strong>for</strong>m<br />

the AREL tool-set. Their relationship is shown in Figure 11.1. The three components<br />

of the AREL tool-set exchange in<strong>for</strong>mation via the Enterprise Architect repositories and<br />

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