Adaptable system/software architectures

36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 CO RR E Adaptability is emerging as an important type of non-functional requirement (NFR) for just about any system, including information systems, embedded systems, e-business systems, and the like. Briefly stated, adaptability is the ability of a system to accommodate changes in its environment. Since all systems work in an environment, an adaptable system should adapt to changes in its environment in order to succeed or even to survive. Often times the notion of adaptability seems to be quite broad, with many other closely-related types of NFRs such as flexibility, evolvability, transformability, reusability, and extensibility. This broad nature makes adaptability not only interesting but also critical in practice and challenging as a research topic. Now at what point during the system/software development does one consider adaptability? It has been widely recognized that the earlier during the software development these NFRs are taken into account, the easier and the more cost-effective it becomes for the final system/software to satisfy these NFRs. The first step in the design of a system/software is the development of the underlying structure of the system/software, namely, the architecture. But how does one go about developing an adaptable system/software architecture? The answer to this question was the focus of the Workshop on Adaptable System/Software ArchiUN 65 66 67 Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (L. Chung).