A Rationale-based Model for Architecture Design Reasoning

viewpoints are functional requirements, non-functional requirements, information
system environment, business environment and technical environment.
Users may select all of the viewpoints or selected viewpoints. The AREL tool
would retrieve only those elements which viewpoints have been included.
The trace actions dictate whether the traceability is to be forward tracing, backward
tracing or both. In forward tracing, only those AEs and ARs which are downwards
from the specified AE element are retrieved. In the backward tracing, only those
AEs and ARs which are upwards from the specified AE are retrieved. When Both
are specified, then all upwards and downwards AEs and ARs are retrieved.
On completion of the trace the following screen is displayed (Figure 7).
Figure 7 – message screen after tracing is complete
The result of the tracing is to create an UML graph which is stored in the same
EAP repository as the AREL model. The trace results are located in the Use Case
Package under Use Case Model with the name of Traceability Graph.
Figure 8 – An example of an AREL model
If Figure 8 is the original AREL model, a downward trace of AE2 would result in a
graph such as the one in Figure 9. An upward trace of AE2 would result in a graph
such as the one in Figure 10. Traceability of both directions would result in a graph
such as the one in Figure 11.
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