Relating System Quality and Software Architecture

System Quality and Software Architecture collects state-of-the-art knowledge on how to intertwine software quality requirements with software architecture and how quality attributes are exhibited by the architecture of the system. Contributions from leading researchers and industry evangelists detail the techniques required to achieve quality management in software architecting, and the best way to apply these techniques effectively in various application domains (especially in cloud, mobile and ultra-large-scale/internet-scale architecture) Taken together, these approaches show how to assess the value of total quality management in a software development process, with an emphasis on architecture.

The book explains how to improve system quality with focus on attributes such as usability, maintainability, flexibility, reliability, reusability, agility, interoperability, performance, and more. It discusses the importance of clear requirements, describes patterns and tradeoffs that can influence quality, and metrics for quality assessment and overall system analysis. The last section of the book leverages practical experience and evidence to look ahead at the challenges faced by organizations in capturing and realizing quality requirements, and explores the basis of future work in this area.

Preface Chapter 1: Introduction to Relating System Quality and Software Architecture Part I: Human-Centric Evaluation for Systems Qualities and Software Architecture Chapter 2: Exploring How the Attribute Driven Design Method is Perceived Chapter 3:  Harmonizing the Quality View of Stakeholders Chapter 4:  Optimizing Functional and Quality Requirements according to Stakeholder’s Goals

Part II: Analysis, Monitoring and Control of Software Architecture for System Qualities Chapter 5:  Hasard: A Model-Based Method for Quality Analysis of Software Architecture Chapter 6: Lightweight Evaluation of Software Architecture Decisions Chapter 7:  A Rule-Based Approach to Architecture Conformance: Checking as a Quality Management Measure Chapter 8: Dashboards for Continuous Monitoring of Product Development Quality Progress

Part III:  Domain-Specific Software Architecture and Software Qualities Chapter 9: Achieving Quality in Customer-Configurable Products Chapter 10:  Archample: Architectural Analysis Approach for Multiple Product Line Engineering Chapter 11: Quality Attributes when Architecting Medical Planning and Simulation Systems Chapter 12:  Addressing Usability Requirements in Mobile Software Development Chapter 13:  Understanding Quality Requirements Engineering in Contract-based Projects from the Perspective of Software Architects: an Exploratory Study

Software engineers, researchers and graduate students of software engineering and software architectures interested in current and emerging trends in relating system quality attributes to software architectures.

Ivan Mistrik is a computer scientist who is interested in system and software engineering (SE/SWE) and in system and software architecture (SA/SWA), in particular: life cycle system/software engineering, requirements engineering, relating software requirements and architectures, knowledge management in software development, rationale-based software development, aligning enterprise/system/software architectures, and collaborative system/software engineering. He has more than forty years’ experience in the field of computer systems engineering as an information systems developer, R&D leader, SE/SA research analyst, educator in computer sciences, and ICT management consultant.

In the past 40 years, he has been primarily working at various R&D institutions and has done consulting on a variety of large international projects sponsored by ESA, EU, NASA, NATO, and UN. He has also taught university-level computer sciences courses in software engineering, software architecture, distributed information systems, and human-computer interaction. He is the author or co-author of more than 80 articles and papers in international journals, conferences, books and workshops, most recently a chapter Capture of Software Requirements and Rationale through Collaborative Software Development, a paper Knowledge Management in the Global Software Engineering Environment, and a paper Architectural Knowledge Management in Global Software Development.

He has written a number of editorials and prefaces, most recently for the book on Aligning Enterprise, System, and Software Architecture and the book on Agile Software Architecture. He has also written over 120 technical reports and presented over 70 scientific/technical talks. He has served in many program committees and panels of reputable international conferences and organized a number of scientific workshops, most recently two workshops on Knowledge Engineering in Global Software and Development at International Conference on

• Explains how design decisions and method selection influence overall system quality, and lessons learned from theories and frameworks on architectural quality
• Shows how to align enterprise, system, and software architecture for total quality
• Includes case studies, experiments, empirical validation, and systematic comparisons with other approaches already in practice.