Optimizing functional distribution in complex system design

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to show thot functionality distribution among embedded objects of a system architecture critically i'lfluences the quality of the resulting architecture. It is shown thot gains can be achieved when functionality distribution is guided by optimization criteria, using an automatically generated centralized processing architecture. This architecture is modifred in order to carry out distributed processing. Two alternatives are then used: first, functionality associated with data processing is removed from the processing class, to different external classes, manually. Second, the entire architecture is re-generated to comply with distributed processing. Object Oriented Paradigm and UML, in conjunction with an extension of data flow diagram (E-DFD) conveying timing iriformation are used for system requirement formalization. SIMOORT is used as graphical interface for direct Use-Case and E-DFD diagram constructions and for simulation. SysObj is used for architecture generation and quality assessment. Resident Quality Metrics and Criteria are used. Metric values obtained for the different solutions prove that it is rewarding to carry out functionality distribution optimization. © 2001 by Springer Science+Business Media New York.