Software Architectural Analysis : An Experience

As the software marketplace becomes more competitive, customers and developers demand more from their products. Software quality is now seldom measured solely in terms of exe-cutable features. Non-functional qualities, such as portability, modiiability, extendibility, etc. are becoming increasingly important in the success of a software product. Software architecture analysis is based upon the assumption that the product's architecture is responsible for a substantial amount of its non-functional qualities. Making such analyses is important because they represent a relatively low-cost means of improving a product early in the software development life cycle, or in determining directions for product evolution later in the life cycle. Moreover if architectural analysis is done in the design stage and maintained in every stage of the development of the product then it also constitutes a very eeective tool for communication within the development team. This paper presents the experience of applying SAAM (Software Architecture Analysis Method) to the analysis and evaluation of a commercial revision control system. The methodology is described, concentrating on: 1) the usage scenarios of interest to the various users, developers, and administrators of the system; 2) a technique for characterizing the system at an architectural level; 3) the evaluation and recommendations made, and their impact on the software development company. 1 Software Architecture Software quality is seldom measured solely in term of executable functions. It invariably includes non-functional qualities like portabil-ity, extendibility, modiiability .. .This demand for non-functional qualities comes from many sources, among them: software systems are getting larger and more complex; software development companies are attempting to develop product families rather than just single products ; networks of heterogeneous machines and protocols are now common, the complexities of new problems require that software tools be integrated in a more eecient way. Not only does this have impact on the use of a software prod