A method proposal for architectural reliability evaluation

Software quality characteristics, such as reliability, maintainability, usability, portability, among others, are directly determined by software architecture and, in consequence, it constitutes a very important artifact to be evaluated as soon as a general design is obtained. This article proposes a method to estimate software reliability by evaluating software architecture. Our method combines the strengths of three evaluation methods: ATAM (Kazman et al, 2000), DUSA (Bosch, 2000) and AEM (Losavio et al., 2004) obtained by identifying the main features needed in reliability architectural evaluation and studying several architectural mechanisms which promote this quality characteristic. Based on these features and the advantages of the studied methods and mechanism, we established phases, activities, roles, inputs/outputs, and artifacts; and we constructed a feasible method which can be applied in any organization interested in improving its software construction process and product.