architecture representation
DESCRIPTION
Architecture Representation. Outline. Goals of Architecture Representation Foundations of Software Architecture Representation Architecture Description Languages Design language elements First-class connectors Modules and Components Applying ADLs Summary. Outline (Cont’d). - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Architecture Representation
Outline
Goals of Architecture Representation Foundations of Software Architecture
Representation Architecture Description Languages
Design language elements First-class connectors Modules and Components Applying ADLs
Summary
Outline (Cont’d)
Modeling the problem and the solution domains Problem domain models Solution domain models
Views Objectives and purpose models Behavioral/functional models Information/data models Models of form Nonfunctional/performance models
Summary
A Model for Representing a Software Architecture Goals of architecture representation – a
representation of a system that can be used to: Design a system Analyze a design Generate a system
Foundations of software architecture representation – the elements for describing an architecture are: Components Connectors Architectural constraints
A Model for Representing a Software Architecture (Cont’d) Architectural description languages – ADLs are
(machine readable) design languages used to describe a system that possess design language properties like: Composition Abstraction Reusability Configuration Heterogeneity Analysis
Foundations of Software Architecture Three types of constructs are
necessary in representing software architectures: Elements Form Rationale
Their elements are classified as: Data Processing Connecting
Foundations of Software Architecture (Cont’d) The architectural form is composed of
weighted (by importance or necessity) properties and relationships.
Properties may be used to define constraints. Relationships may be used to show how
different architectural elements interact. Rationales capture the motivation behind
various decisions; they are inferences that can be structured as an argument with the design decision being the conclusion.
Fundamental Software Design Views (Cont’d)
Architectural styles can be sequential or parallel In the sequential style the connecting
elements are procedure calls and parameters
In the parallel style the connecting element is a shared representation of the data (a repositiory)
Architecture Description Languages Programming language structures are
inadequate for describing architectural elements.
Furthermore, they provide no way to model a strict separation of concerns between architectural-level design issues and detail design issues.
Languages in general serve the purpose of describing complex relationships among primitive elements and element combinations.
Architecture Description Languages (Cont’d) Having identified semantic constructs it makes
sense to define a language around them. Common architectural description elements
include: (Pure) computation (processing elements) – simple
input/output relations with no retained state Memory (data elements) – shared collections of
persistent structured data Manager – manage state and closely related
operations Controller – governs the sequence of operations Link – transmit information between elements
Common Component Interactions
Procedure call Data flow Implicit invocation Message passing Shared data Instantiation
Design Language Elements -- Albin Components – the primitive semantic elements Operators – functions that combine
components Abstraction rules – allow for the definition of
named expressions of components and operators
Closure rules – determines which abstractions can be added to the classes of primitive components and operators
Specification – associates semantics to syntactic forms
Design Language Elements – Shaw and Garlan Components – the modules that compose the
architectural level of design Operators – the inter-component connection
mechanisms Patterns – design templates that solve a
particular set of problems (a framework) Closure – defines the conditions under which a
particular assembly of components and operators may also be used as an atomic component
Specification – associates semantics such as functionality and other quality attributes to the syntactic forms
Six Classes of Properties that Should Characterize an ADL
Composition Abstraction Reusability Configuration Heterogeneity Architectural Analysis
Composition
An ADL should allow for the description of a system as a composition of components and connectors.
It must support the ability to split a system or module into two modules
It must support the ability to synthesize or combine modules to create new forms.
These splitting or synthesis operations should be independent of implementation design decisions (choice of algorithms, data structures, connecting technology, etc.)
A composition of elements must be allowed to be viewed as a single component.
It must be possible to operate on the individual components of the composition.
Abstraction
An ADL should allow a designer to focus on high-level concerns without having to think in terms of programming level constructs.
Architectural abstractions are patterns of programming language constructs.
An architect can think in terms of components and connectors focusing on the architectural concerns of modifiability, reliability, performance, etc. without having to map them to specific programming language elements.
Reusability
It should be possible to modularize a specification written in a particular ADL so that the components can be used in other systems.
These specifications are reusable patterns of components.
For example, a certain client-server pattern might identify a database server component with a particular database table structure (a reusable data model).
Each physical database implementation might look different but each would have the same core data and enforce the same semantic rules.
Configuration
It should be possible with an ADL to describe a composite structure separately from its elements so that the composition can be reasoned about as an atomic element.
It should support the dynamic reconfiguration of a system in terms of restructuring compositions without knowing their internal structure.
For example, in a client/server system, an indefinite number of clients may be executing at any time.
Heterogeneity
This is the ability to mix architectural styles within a single architectural specification.
At one level, the architecture may exhibit a particular pattern of compositions, but the structure of each composition may follow a different pattern.
An ADL should allow different compositions to be compiled to different languages.
Architecture Analysis
An ADL should support the ability to analyze an architecture.
Analysis of architecture includes both automated and non automated reasoning about quality attributes of a system.
ADL research aims to automate this analysis by providing machine-readable specifications of specific quality attribute requirements and then checking to see if the architecture specification conforms to it.
First-Class Connectors
Connectors should be considered equal to components.
Connectors often embody the nonfunctional quality attributes and bring form to the architecture.
Modules and Components
“A module is a unit whose structural elements are powerfully connected among themselves and relatively weakly connected to elements of other units. Clearly there degrees of connection; thus gradations of modularity.” – Baldwin
Programming languages are insufficient for representing architectural level designs because they lack explicit connecting elements.
Connecting elements are just as important from the architectural level of design as processing and data elements.
The ability to abstract the implementation of a connecting element within an architecture specification is what makes an ADL so powerful.
An ADL Example – C2 SADL
The C2 Software Architecture Description Language is intended for designing a flexible, extensible component- and message- based system that has a graphical user interface.
A C2-based system is structured as a hierarchy of concurrent components that communicate via connectors, which are message-routing mechanisms.
A component can have at most two connectors – a top connector and a bottom connector, which attach to components either up one level in the hierarchy or down one level.
The top connector of one component is coupled with the bottom connectors of other components, and vice versa.
An ADL Example – C2 SADL (Cont’d) There is no limit to the number of connectors
that ma be coupled with a single connector. A C2 component is only aware of the
components above it, not those below. Requests go up and notifications go down. There is one component at the top. The C2 architectural style relies on a
programming language neutral event mechanism, such as a message queue.
An ADL Example – C2 SADL (Cont’d) C2 SADL is composed of three parts:
Interface Definition Notation (IDN) Supports textual specification of C2 component
interfaces Consists of specifications for parameters,
methods, behavior, and context Architecture Description Notation (ADN)
Supports textual specification of a C2 architecture Architecture Construction Notation (ACN)
Supports textural specification of architecture changes
Applying ADL’s
ADLs are not commonly used. Most are experimental. Understanding the problems that ADLs
attempt to solve, can help an architect to think about the solution to a particular problem.
Understanding ADLs helps the architect to focus on the nature of connections between components.
Summary
The component level of design allows us to reason about the properties of the system without first constructing the entire system.
The fundamental language of specifying architecture design is composed of elements, form, and rationale.
Elements are processing, data, and connecting Form is composed of weighted properties and
relationships. Rationales capture the reasons why certain
design decisions were made.
Summary (Cont’d)
Architecture Description Languages (ADLs) are high-level languages for describing the component view of a software system.
ADLs have not been applied much in practice. UML is often used as an ADL even though it is
inadequate. The dependency (design) structure matrix is still
one of the most powerful representation tools.