Sustainability measurement in reference architecture

• Grant number: 17/15446-5
• Support type: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Effective date (Start): October 20, 2017
• Effective date (End): April 19, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Computer Science - Computing Methodologies and Techniques
• Principal researcher: Elisa Yumi Nakagawa
• Grantee: Tiago Volpato
• Supervisor abroad: Rafael Capilla
• Home Institution: Instituto de Ciências Matemáticas e de Computação (ICMC). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Research place: Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Móstoles (URJC), Spain
• Associated to the scholarship: 16/16870-2 - Sustainability measurement in reference architectures, BP.MS

Abstract

Software architectures have played an essential role in determining the quality of software systems. In this scenario, reference architectures is a special type of software architecture that has successfully supported the development, standardization, and evolution of systems. Considering their relevance, many reference architectures have been established for diverse domains, such as health, automotive, and robotics. However, these application domains continually evolve and their reference architectures also need to evolve to continue to be efficient for such domains. However, many of them have not been adequately evolved. Diverse elements, such as design decisions and adherence to good design practices, influence the ability of reference architectures to support continuous changes while maintaining their efficiency; therefore, a major challenge is to ensure the sustainability in reference architectures. Hence, it is quite interesting to be able to measure the sustainability of these architectures. The main objective of this Master's project is to establish a method for measuring sustainability in reference architectures, as well as a set of guidelines to increase such sustainability. For this, sustainability will be considered as a quality characteristic, and sub characteristics and metrics will be also proposed. During the visit in abroad, we intend to evaluate this method conducing case studies and/or survey on representative reference architectures. As a result, we intend to contribute to the software architecture community, providing direction to more easily evolve reference architectures. (AU)