Performance-driven stepwise refinement of component-based architectures

Abstract

Detailed models of component-based software architectures are crucial for the accurate evaluation and prediction of systems quality attributes (e.g., performance) during early development stages. Ideally, the increased complexity of such models should not incur additional modelling effort for developers. Specific incremental model refinements called completions provide a systematic approach to reduce the modelling effort. Completions transparently integrate low-level details that affect system's quality (e.g. performance impact of middleware configuration) into component-based architectural models, using model-to-model transformations. When multiple completions are to be applied, the necessary model transformations are executed in a chain. In such scenarios, conflicts between different completions are likely. In current practice, the conflicts are supposed to be resolved by software architects, who decide on the suitable transformation order manually. However, this approach is time-consuming, can be error-prone, and is likely to result in suboptimal designs. In this paper, we aim to automate the resolution of conflicts. We define a technique to identify and resolve possible conflicts. The technique locally optimises the completions order, based on its validity and quality attributes semantics. We validate our approach by applying it to an architecture model of a component-based business information system and analyse the impact of different completions orders and the complexity of possible conflicts.