Experiences with ALMA: architecture-level modifiability analysis

  • Authors:

  • Nico Lassing;Perlof Bengtsson;Hans van Vliet;Jan Bosch

  • Affiliations:

  • Accenture, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;Department of Software Engineering and Computer Science, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Ronneby, Sweden;Faculty of Science, Divison of Mathematics and Computer Science, Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1081A, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands;Department of Mathematics and Computing Science, Universtiy of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Systems and Software
  • Year:
  • 2002

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Modifiability is an important quality for software systems, because a large part of the costs associated with these systems is spent on modifications. The effort, and therefore cost, that is required for these modifications is largely determined by a system's software architecture. Analysis of software architectures is therefore an important technique to achieve modifiability and reduce maintenance costs. However, few techniques for software architecture analysis currently exist. Based on our experiences with software architecture analysis of modifiability, we have developed ALMA, an architecture-level modifiability analysis method consisting of five steps. In this paper we report on our experiences with ALMA. We illustrate our experiences with examples from two case studies of software architecture analysis of modifiability. These case studies concern a system for mobile positioning at Ericsson Software Technology AB and a system for freight handling at DFDS Fraktarna. Our experiences are related to each step of the analysis process. In addition, we made some observations on software architecture analysis of modifiability in general.