On the impact of evolving requirements-architecture dependencies: An exploratory study

Abstract

Architecture design plays a significant role in the evolution of software systems, as it provides the prime realization of the driving requirements and their inter-dependencies. With the increasing volatility of software requirements nowadays, it is necessary to understand the correlation between evolving classical requirements dependencies and their impact on the architectural decomposition. In the context of this analysis, two questions arise: (i) what are the conventional categories of requirements dependencies that are more architecturally significant in terms of change impact? and (ii) to what extent those evolving dependencies tend to generate ripple effects through architectural modules and interfaces. In order to address these two questions, this paper first presents an analysis model that categorizes requirements dependencies. Second, we have performed an exploratory study, based on the change history analysis of a real-life Web-based information system, in order to gather the most architecturally-significant requirements dependencies from our model. We have systematically analyzed ten system releases, based on some qualitative and quantitative indicators, with respect to how the requirements- architecture dependencies and compositions evolved. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.