Generation and evaluation of design alternatives for software architectures (GenEDA)

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Michael Goedicke; Professorin Dr. Maritta Heisel
• Subject Area: Software Engineering and Programming Languages
• Term: from 2009 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 141396433

• Final Report Year: 2017

Final Report Abstract

The project is the follow-up project to former works. In these works we developed the GenEDA method, an approach to generate design alternatives for software architectures from given quality requirements. We aimed at extending the GenEDA method in four working areas: Foundational Work, Fusion, Real-Life Scenarios and Benchmarking and Tooling. In Foundational Work, the foundations for broadening and deepening the GenEDA approach were laid via four facets, namely evolvability, interaction and trade-off analysis, optimization, and variability. Each facet was first analyzed in isolation. In the Fusion working area, we integrated the findings from each facet into the GenEDA method. Using the Common Component Modelling Example (CoCoME), we constantly evaluated parts of the method with a real-life scenario. Furthermore, we provided tool support for both modeling requirements as problem diagrams and supporting the pattern selection process we designed. During the course of the project, we had to reorganize the workload because of a reduced project time and the finding that parts of the original GenEDA method had to be redesigned. Therefore, there is a deviation between the original schedule defined in the project proposal and the actual work done during the project period. As a consequence, we decided to remove evolvability as a facet to analyze in the Foundational Work working area, shrink the Fusion working area (implicitly as a result of removing one of the facets), and leave out the envisioned benchmarking.

Publications

• Optimizing Functional and Quality Requirements According to Stakeholders’ Goals. In: System Quality and Software Architecture (SQSA), pages 75-120. Elsevier, 2014
  Azadeh Alebrahim, Christine Choppy, Stephan Faßbender, and Maritta Heisel
  
• Problem-Based Requirements Interaction Analysis. In: Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality, pages 200-215. Springer International Publishing, 2014
  Azadeh Alebrahim, Stephan Faßbender, Maritta Heisel, and Rene Meis
  
• Towards a Computer-aided Problem-oriented Variability Requirements Engineering Method. In: Advanced Information Systems Engineering Workshops. Springer International Publishing, 2014
  Azadeh Alebrahim, Stephan Faßbender, Martin Filipczyk, Michael Goedicke, Maritta Heisel, and Marco Konersmann
  
• 1st Workshop on VAriability for QUalIties in SofT- ware Architecture (VAQUITA): Workshop Introduction. In: ECSAW ’15 Proceedings of the 2015 European Conference on Software Architecture Workshops Article No. 22
  Azadeh Alebrahim, Stephan Faßbender, Martin Filipczyk, Michael Goedicke, Maritta Heisel, and Uwe Zdun
  
• Towards a Reliable Mapping Between Performance and Security Tactics, and Architectural Patterns. In: Proceedings of the 20th European Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs. 2015
  Azadeh Alebrahim, Stephan Faßbender, Martin Filipczyk, Michael Goedicke, and Maritta Heisel
  
• Towards Systematic Selection of Architectural Patterns with Respect to Quality Requirements. In: Proceedings of the 20th European Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs. 2015
  Azadeh Alebrahim, Stephan Faßbender, Martin Filipczyk, Michael Goedicke, and Maritta Heisel