METHOD SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURAL COMPONENT DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

This paper examines methods of addressing the problem of architecture erosion and keeping the software architecture live and up to date. In this study a method to minimize or avoid architecture erosion was proposed. This method provides a systematic way to design the architecture of the software system. It is based on the concept of architecture vision that is the ideal representation of the architecture of the software in hand. This method treats architecture document and architecture design document as two completely different documents. Moreover this study presents an effort to establish a relationship between the implemented architecture of the system, the architecture design document and an architecture vision. The dynamic validation of the devised method shows that this method is suitable for medium to large scale projects that have several releases. All the activities of this method revolve around the efforts to keep the architecture of the software aligned with an architecture vision. The iterative nature of the method and synchronization of the implemented architecture with the architecture vision helps to detect and reduce architecture erosion. This method does not conflict with or replaces any development or management process or method (like RUP, agile, water fall etc), but exists parallel to them.