The Need for Software Architecture Evaluation in the Acquisition of Software-Intensive Sysetms

Abstract

The software architecture for a software-intensive system defines the main elements of the system, their relationships, and the rationale for them in the system. Software architecture is fundamental to whether a system can achieve its quality objectives. Architecture evaluation is an approach for assessing whether a software architecture can support the system needs, especially its non-functional requirements (also known as quality requirements). Architecture evaluation can be used at different stages of a project, and is an effective way of ensuring design quality early in the lifecycle to reduce overall project cost and to manage risks. This report describes software architecture and architecture evaluation, and summarises some of the key benefits for software architecture evaluation that have been observed both in industry and in international Defence contexts. We make some general recommendations about architecture evaluation in the context of Australian defence acquisition.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2014
Accession Number
ADA600980

Entities

People

  • Liming Zhu
  • Mark Staples
  • Thong Nguyen

Organizations

  • Defence Science and Technology Group

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Engineered Resilient Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Best Practices
  • Business Administration
  • Complex Systems
  • Computer Programs
  • Computer Science
  • Computers
  • Defense Industry
  • Department Of Defense
  • Formal Languages
  • Language
  • Military Acquisition
  • Reliability
  • Software Design
  • Software Development
  • Supply Chain
  • Systems Engineering
  • Test And Evaluation

Fields of Study

  • Computer science
  • Engineering

Readers

  • Organizational Process Management (OPM).
  • Software Engineering.