A formal approach for managing component-based architecture evolution

Abderrahman Mokni (1) , Christelle Urtado (1) , Sylvain Vauttier (1) , Marianne Huchard (2) , Zhang Huaxi Yulin (3)

1 LGI2P - Laboratoire de Génie Informatique et Ingénierie de Production
2 MAREL - Models And Reuse Engineering, Languages
3 MIS - Modélisation, Information et Systèmes - UR UPJV 4290

Software architectures are subject to several types of change during the software lifecycle (e.g. adding requirements, correcting bugs, enhancing performance). The variety of these changes makes architecture evolution management complex because all architecture descriptions must remain consistent after change. To do so, whatever part of the architectural description they affect, the effects of change have to be propagated to the other parts. The goal of this paper is to provide support for evolving component-based architectures at multiple abstraction levels. Architecture descriptions follow an architectural model named Dedal, the three description levels of which correspond to the three main development steps | specification, implementation and deployment. This paper formalizes an evolution management model that generates evolution plans according to a given architecture change request, thus preserving consistency of architecture descriptions and coherence between them. The approach is implemented as an Eclipse-based tool and validated with three evolution scenarios of a Home Automation Software example.

Mots clés: architecture evolution; architecture analysis; evolution rules; formal models; abstraction level; evolution plans; Model Driven Engineering

Domaines: Génie logiciel [cs.SE]

Abderrahman Mokni, Christelle Urtado, Sylvain Vauttier, Marianne Huchard, Zhang Huaxi Yulin. A formal approach for managing component-based architecture evolution. Science of Computer Programming, 2016, 127, pp.24-49. ⟨10.1016/j.scico.2016.03.003⟩. ⟨hal-01380397⟩