Modeling the interactions between decisions within software architecture knowledge

Abstract

Software architecture is developed as a result of a selection process for software architectural solutions. The complexity, diversity and evolution nature of architectural solutions' interactions forces the architect to make critical design decisions based only on his own experience. Even though, the same design problem has already been addressed by another architect in a similar situation. In this paper, we are presenting a model for reusable software architectural knowledge to support the architect within the design process in understanding the relationship between the different architectural solutions, and how they impact the architectural design reasoning. In addition, the model acts as a base for organizational software architectural knowledge sharing. Our contribution in this paper is classifying and modeling the solutions and decisions' interactions, as well as how the design decision can be used as a reusable element for sharing the architectural experience. © 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland.