Integrating of traceability of quality attributes into an automated software architecture design

Abstract

This research looked at reducing the traceability problem by developing and testing a model for, and a plugin named QA-Tracer. The QA-Tracer automates the traceability of quality attributes during the Architecture design phase of the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC). Preliminarily, we studied the existing techniques developed so far while seeking solutions to the persistent problems. Requirements Traceability (RT) is defined as the following of the life of a requirement from inception to maintenance i.e. from the time a user submits the requirement to the time it is implemented in a system and thought out the lifetime of the system. Important benefits from successful traceability are realized in; the ease of project process management, process visibility, simplified verification, ease of validation, and ease of maintenance of the system. Several techniques have been developed to represent traceability artefacts. These include; cross-referencing schemes, key-phrase dependencies, RT matrices, matrix sequences to mention but a few. To date, a few researchers have ventured into the field of traceability, especially traceability of Quality Attributes (QAs) during Architecture Design. This has contributed to the persistence of the Traceability problem. Jane Cleland et al in their work express a vision for traceability known as ubiquitous traceability. This is the kind that is cheap and always around throughout the life of the software. The desire to see this dream archived was the motivation for this research. In the quest to overcome the traceability problem, innovations like Trace Query Language (TQL), Traceability Information Model (TIM), etc. were all developed by different researchers but still have not completely removed the traceability problem. The model was developed using the modeling techniques and tools of research that employed Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software. Using the survey technique, the researcher employed data collection methods like observations, document review questionnaires, and interviews to collect system requirements for the said plugin. The build methodology was used to develop, test, and evaluate the QA-Tracer eclipse plugin within the eclipse IDE alongside the Arch Studio plugin for architecture design. The QA-Tracer plugin provides a continuation of the efforts that have sought for long to mitigate the traceability problem and realize the ubiquitous traceability in the whole SDLC. However, there is still a compatibility issue between several IDEs and the QA-Tracer and among other traceability tools employed at different levels of the SDLC. Therefore, more research is still required to consolidate all available and missing work to develop a comprehensive universal traceability tool that will one day see ubiquitous traceability attained