Bridging the Gap between Requirements Engineering and Software Architecture (eBook)

Ms. Azadeh Alebrahim is currently working as an IT consultant. She advises the customers on IT Service Management, process optimization, restructuring the IT organization, and digitalization.

Foreword 6
Preface 9
Acknowledgements 12
Contents 14
Acronyms 20
1Introduction 24
1.1 Problem Statement 24
1.2 Research Questions & Contribution
1.2.1 Research Questions 28
1.2.2 Contribution 29
1.3 Outline 37
2Background 41
2.1 Requirements Engineering 41
2.1.1 Quality Requirements 42
2.1.2 Problem Frames 44
2.2 Software Architecture Concepts 46
2.2.1 Definition of Software Architecture 46
2.2.2 Difference between Architecture and Design 47
2.2.3 Architectural Patterns 49
2.2.4 Quality-specific Mechanisms and Tactics 50
2.2.5 Viewpoint Models 51
2.2.6 Architecture Description Languages vs UML 52
2.2.7 Architecture Evaluation 53
2.3 UML Profiles 54
2.3.1 UML profile for Problem Frames 55
2.3.2 Architecture Profile 59
2.3.3 Dependability Profile 61
2.3.4 MARTE Profile 62
2.4 Life-Cycle Expressions 64
2.5 Variability Modeling 64
2.6 Case Study Smart Grid 65
2.6.1 Description of Smart Grids 67
2.6.2 Functional Requirements 68
2.6.3 Security Requirements 70
2.6.4 Performance Requirements 71
3Framework for Identifying Meta-Requirements 72
3.1 Introduction 72
3.2 Meta-Requirement Derivation 75
3.2.1 Essential Meta-Requirements 78
3.2.2 Recommended Meta-Requirements 82
3.2.3 Optional Meta-Requirements 88
3.2.4 Method Characteristics 90
3.3 The Evaluation Framework NIMSAD 91
3.3.1 Methodology Context 92
3.3.2 Methodology User 93
3.3.3 Methodology Contents 93
3.3.4 Evaluation 94
3.4 Our Proposed Evaluation Framework 94
3.5 Related Review 96
3.6 Research Method 96
3.6.1 Planning Phase 96
3.6.2 Conducting Phase 100
3.7 Results and Discussion 106
3.7.1 Description of Selected Methods 107
3.7.2 Results of the SLR 112
3.8 Comparative Evaluation 118
3.8.1 Value Assignment Schema 118
3.8.2 Framework Application 125
3.9 Threats to Validity 128
3.10 Contributions 129
4Phase 1: Context Elicitation & Problem Analysis
4.1 Introduction 131
4.2 UML4PF Extension for Quality Requirements 132
4.3 Method for Problem-oriented Requirement Analysis 133
4.4 Related Work 146
4.5 Contributions 147
5Phase 2: Architectural Pattern Selection & Application
5.1 Introduction 149
5.2 Artifacts and their Relations 152
5.3 External Input for the Process 154
5.3.1 Question Catalog (Questions) 154
5.3.2 Question Catalog (Indicator Questions) 156
5.3.3 Relations between Problem Frames and Questions 157
5.3.4 Benefits and Liabilities of Architectural Patterns 158
5.3.5 Architectural Pattern Catalog 160
5.4 The Pattern Selection Process 161
5.5 Application to the Case Study Smart Grid 165
5.6 Derivation of Initial Architecture 181
5.6.1 Design Desicion regarding Architectural Pattern Selection 182
5.6.2 Design Desicion regarding Gateway Physical Boundary 182
5.6.3 Further Iterations - Problem Diagram Splitting 183
5.6.4 Method for Deriving Initial Architecture 185
5.7 Related Work 193
5.8 Contributions 194
6Phase 3: Domain Knowledge Analysis 195
6.1 Introduction 195
6.2 Structured Meta-Process 197
6.3 Structured Object-Process 206
6.4 Related Work 212
6.5 Contributions 214
7Phase 4: Requirements Interaction Analysis 215
7.1 Introduction 215
7.2 Functional Requirements Interaction Detection 218
7.2.1 Sunblind Example 218
7.2.2 Method for Functional Requirements Interaction Detection 220
7.2.3 Application to the Case Study Smart Grid 229
7.3 Method for Quality Requirements Interaction Detection 230
7.4 Method for Performance Requirements Analysis 240
7.5 Method for Generating Requirement Alternatives 251
7.6 Related Work 262
7.6.1 Related work with respect to Requirements Interaction 262
7.6.2 Related work with respect to Performance Analysis 264
7.7 Contributions 265
8 Phase 5: Quality-specific Pattern Analysis 267
8.1 Introduction 267
8.2 Problem-oriented Security Patterns 269
8.2.1 UML4PF Extension for Problem-oriented Security Patterns 270
8.2.2 Structure of the Problem-oriented Security Patterns 271
8.2.3 Problem-oriented Symmetric Encryption Pattern 273
8.2.4 Problem-oriented MAC Pattern 276
8.2.5 Problem-oriented RBAC Pattern 277
8.2.6 Problem-oriented Digital Signature Pattern 280
8.2.7 Problem-oriented Asymmetric Encryption Pattern 282
8.3 Problem-oriented Performance Patterns 284
8.3.1 UML4PF Extension for Problem-oriented Performance Patterns 284
8.3.2 Structure of the Problem-oriented Performance Patterns 285
8.3.3 Problem-oriented First Things First (FTF) Pattern 289
8.3.4 Problem-oriented Flex Time (FT) Pattern 290
8.3.5 Problem-oriented Master-Worker (MW) Pattern 291
8.3.6 Problem-oriented Load Balancer (LB) Pattern 293
8.4 Discussion 294
8.5 Mapping Requirements to Quality Solutions 298
8.5.1 UML4PF Extension for Mapping Requirements to their Solution Alternatives 298
8.5.2 Problem-Solution Diagram 302
8.6 Related Work 305
8.6.1 Related work with respect to Security and Performance 305
8.6.2 Related work with respect to Variability 306
8.7 Contributions 308
9Phase 6: Quality-specific Pattern Selection & Application
9.1 Introduction 309
9.2 Method for Selecting & Applying Quality-specific Patterns
9.3 Contributions 347
10Phase 7: Software Architecture Alternatives Derivation 348
10.1 Introduction 348
10.2 Method for Deriving Implementable Architecture Alternatives 349
10.3 Related Work 367
10.4 Contributions 370
11Phase 8: Software Architecture Alternatives Evaluation 371
11.1 Introduction 371
11.2 Identification of Software Architecture Evaluation Methods 372
11.2.1 Research Method 373
11.2.2 Results 374
11.3 Comparative Framework for Software Architecture Evaluation Methods 375
11.4 Selection of Software Architecture Evaluation Methods 379
11.4.1 Requirements on the Evaluation Method 379
11.4.2 Application of the Comparative Framework 380
11.5 Evaluation of Architecture Alternatives using ATAM 385
11.5.1 Application of ATAM to Smart Grid’s Architecture Alternatives 385
11.5.2 Discussion of the results 401
11.6 Related Work 404
11.7 Contributions 405
12Validation of the QuaDRA Framework 407
12.1 Introduction 407
12.2 Evaluation Framework 408
12.3 Value Assignment Schema 410
12.4 Comparative Evaluation of the QuaDRA Framework 410
12.4.1 Value Assignment 411
12.4.2 Comparison of QuaDRA with the State-of-the-Art Methods 418
12.5 Contributions 420
13Extending Problem-Oriented Requirements Engineering for SPL 421
13.1 Introduction 421
13.2 Alarm System Example 423
13.3 UML4PF Extension for Modeling Variability 423
13.4 PREVISE Method and its Application 426
13.4.1 Product Line Requirement Model Creation 429
13.4.2 Deriving a Concrete Product Requirement Model 441
13.5 Related Work 445
13.6 Contributions 447
14Conclusions 448
14.1 Summary 448
14.2 Answer to Research Questions 450
14.3 Future Research 454
14.3.1 Risk Analysis for Deriving Security Requirements 454
14.3.2 Integrating Tactics into the Process of Architectural Pattern Selection 455
14.3.3 Aspect-oriented Requirements Engineering with Problem Frames 455
14.3.4 Providing Support for SPL in the Architecture Phase 456
14.3.5 Architecture Views 457
14.3.6 Tool Support 457
Appendix A OCL Expressions related to the UML profileExtension for Quality Requirements 459
Appendix BArchitectural Pattern Selection 461
B.1 Problem Frames Catalog 461
B.2 Question Catalog 463
B.3 Relations between Problem Frames and Questions 465
B.4 Benefits and Liabilities 470
B.5 Architectural Pattern Catalog 473
B.6 Initial Architecture - Port Types 474
Appendix CQuality-specific Pattern Selection & Application
C.1 Problem-oriented Security Pattern Template for A1 475
C.2 Problem-oriented Security Pattern Template for A2 477
C.3 Problem-oriented Security Pattern Template for A3 480
Appendix DQuality-based Architecture 484
Appendix EArchitecture Evaluation Methods 488
References 493