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A Rationale-based Model for Architecture Design Reasoning

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3.4. Other related studies<br />

3.3.7 Quantitative reasoning methods<br />

<strong>Architecture</strong> design involves the selection of an optimal solution by eliminating inferior<br />

design alternatives. One way to facilitate such selection process is to quantify the design<br />

options in some ways. There are a number of methods which use quantitative analysis<br />

as a mean in the selection process. <strong>Architecture</strong> Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM) is a<br />

method to use tradeoffs to justify architecture design decisions [8]. ATAM method does<br />

the following:<br />

• Identify the quality attributes as goals in a decision<br />

• Assign relative priority to the goals<br />

• Identify the architecture approaches (i.e. options)<br />

• Create an utility tree to list the quality attributes, their attribute refinements and<br />

the scenarios<br />

• Carry out an analysis of the alternative approaches by investigating the sensitivity<br />

points (i.e. which quality attributes are affected), the tradeoff points (i.e. compromise<br />

required in order to satisfy the quality attributes), risks and non-risks<br />

Cost Benefit Analysis Method (CBAM) considers the costs and benefits which are associated<br />

with the decisions. The method calculates the expected return of an architecture<br />

strategy by weighing up the benefits and the costs. The benefits and the costs are computed<br />

by calculating the weighted benefits and the weighted costs of all related scenarios.<br />

This weighted method provides a quantifiable justification <strong>for</strong> making decisions [4].<br />

Arch<strong>Design</strong>er involves stakeholders to prioritise the quality attributes. Architects<br />

would elicit the impact of different architecture design options on the quality attributes.<br />

Then using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to compute the value scores, they<br />

select the optimal design alternative to satisfy the goal [2].<br />

3.4 Other related studies<br />

A number of studies in the other areas of software engineering are relevant to design rationale.<br />

<strong>Design</strong> rationalisation is an integral part of the the design process which uses<br />

requirements to drive decision making. There<strong>for</strong>e, some studies in the requirements engineering<br />

and non-functional requirements domains are relevant to this work. When design<br />

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