Model-Driven Evolution of Software Architectures - Software and ...
Model-Driven Evolution of Software Architectures - Software and ...
Model-Driven Evolution of Software Architectures - Software and ...
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8.2. Background 169<br />
Inpractice,theextraeffortrequiredforthedevelopment<strong>of</strong>graphicaleditorscanhampertheintroduction<strong>of</strong>MDE.Considerthefollowingscenario.<br />
As<strong>of</strong>twaredevelopmentorganisationdecidestointroduceMDE.Currently,<br />
thedevelopersuseUML. However,asinmanyotherorganisations,they<br />
onlyuseUMLmodellingtoolsfordrawingdiagrams[Langeetal.,2006].<br />
Thesediagramsareimportantforthecommunicationwithotherstakeholders,astheyconstituteanessentialpart<strong>of</strong>thedocumentation.<br />
The<br />
introduction<strong>of</strong>MDEinvolvesthedefinition<strong>of</strong>DSMLsfromwhichcodewill<br />
begenerated. Furthermore,asthedevelopersarecomfortablewithusing<br />
atextualsyntaxfortheseDSMLs,nographicaleditorsaredeveloped.The<br />
resultisthattheynowhavetocreate DSMLmodelsforcodegeneration<br />
aswellasUMLdiagramsfordocumentation. Consideringthecurrentuse<br />
<strong>of</strong>UML,asinvestigatedbyLangeetal.[2006],<strong>and</strong>theupcoming<strong>of</strong>MDE<br />
approaches,suchasthe<strong>Model</strong><strong>Driven</strong>Architecture 1 (MDA),thisisnotan<br />
unlikelyscenario.<br />
Weinvestigatethefeasibility<strong>of</strong>ourapproachinthedomain<strong>of</strong>s<strong>of</strong>tware<br />
architecture.InSection8.2weintroducethelanguagesspecifictothisdomain,<strong>and</strong>thest<strong>and</strong>arddocumentationapproach.<br />
Ourapproachforthe<br />
model-drivendocumentation<strong>of</strong>s<strong>of</strong>twarearchitecture,MDAV,ispresented<br />
inSection8.3<strong>and</strong>wereportonasmallcasestudyinSection8.4.Theapproachiseasilyappliedtootherdomainsaswell.Anadditional(industrial)<br />
casestudyinvolvingadifferenttype<strong>of</strong>modelsispresentedinSection8.5.<br />
Wediscussthebenefits<strong>and</strong>limitations<strong>of</strong>theapproachinSection8.6.After<br />
discussingsomerelatedworkinSection8.7,weconcludewithanoverview<br />
<strong>of</strong>ourcontributions<strong>and</strong>opportunitiesforfutureworkinSection8.8.<br />
8.2 Background<br />
Inthissectionweintroducemodelling<strong>and</strong>documentationinthedomain<br />
<strong>of</strong>s<strong>of</strong>twarearchitecture.Furthermore,wediscusssome<strong>of</strong>thetechnologies<br />
thatenableourapproach.<br />
8.2.1 S<strong>of</strong>twareArchitecture<br />
<strong>Model</strong>ling Severalnotationshavebeendevelopedtospecifyarchitectural<br />
models. Thesearchitecturedescriptionlanguages(ADLs)(seeMedvidovic<br />
<strong>and</strong>Taylor[1997]foranoverview)mostlyconsideranarchitecturetobea<br />
configuration<strong>of</strong>runtimecomponents<strong>and</strong>connectors.<br />
Duetotheirformalsyntax<strong>and</strong>semanticsADLsenableautomaticcode<br />
generation<strong>and</strong>analysis. Despitethesebenefits,<strong>and</strong>althoughADLshave<br />
1 http://www.omg.org/mda(June2007)
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