Case study method and research design for the dynamic multilevel component selection problem

Abstract

The architecture of a system changes after the deployment phase due to new requirements of the stakeholders. The software architect must make decisions about the selection of the right software components out of a range of choices to satisfy a set of requirements. This work deals with the component selection problem with a multilevel system view in a dynamic environment. To validate our approach we have used the case study method. Three different case studies were performed but only one is presented in the current paper. The research design was conducted using a research question, propositions and for interpreting the study’s findings we have use the Wilcoxon signed ranks statistical test. The tests performed show the potential of evolutionary algorithms for the dynamic multilevel component selection problem.