Parameter Dependent Performance Specifications of Software Components

Abstract. Performance predictions based on design documents aim at improving the quality of software architectures. In component-based architectures, it is difficult to specify the performance of individual components, because it depends on the deployment context of a component, which may be unknown to its developers. The way components are used influences the perceived performance, but most performance prediction approaches neglect this influence. In this paper, we present a specification notation based on annotated UML diagrams to explicitly model the influence of parameters on the performance of a software component. The UML specifications are transformed into a stochastical model that allows the prediction of response times as distribution functions. Furthermore, we report on a case study performed on an online store. The results indicate that more accurate predictions could be obtained with the newly introduced specification and that the method was able to support a design decision on the architectural level in our scenario.