Software Architecture: Framing Stakeholders' Concerns
Final submissions due: 1 April 2010
Publication date: November/December 2010
Software architects must identify and manage several architectural concerns to devise a successful architecture. Three complementary approaches are commonly used in practice to frame stakeholders’ concerns:
- architecture viewpoints (e.g., logical, process, use case) comprising notations, models, and conventions for creating views of the architecture;
- architecture frameworks as coordinated collections of viewpoints (e.g., Zachman, the Open Group Architecture Framework, and, the Reference Model of Open Distributed Processing); and
- architecture models constructed using architecture description languages (ADLs) and/or model-driven architecture (MDA) approaches.
When putting these approaches into practice, architects face recurring issues: Which views and models/languages do I need? How do I handle concern X? How do I illustrate the concerns addressed by my architecture to stakeholder Y? Are there any reusable viewpoints or models to frame the concerns of clients, auditors, or maintainers?
Some architectural concerns such as interface access, deployment, and functionality and its allocation are well served today, embodied in available architecture frameworks, viewpoints, or languages. However, other dominant concerns are not addressed by available off-the-shelf approaches. Examples range from quality aspects such as safety, privacy, reliability, and scalability to business aspects such as budget, cost, schedule, and quality of service. If missed or ignored, critical concerns can seriously disrupt a project.
This special issue will explore the state of the art and current industrial practice in framing architectural concerns. We especially welcome case studies, lessons learned, success and failure stories in introducing viewpoints, frameworks, and models to organizations, mature and innovative approaches, and future trends.
Possible topics include but are not limited to
- research approaches and industrial practice on identifying, documenting, and applying viewpoints, frameworks, and models in framing architectural concerns;
- tools to support viewpoints, frameworks, and models in framing architectural concerns;
- reuse, customization, generalization, and standardization of architectural viewpoints, frameworks, and models;
- viewpoints and models for specialized concerns (e.g., reliability, safety, security) or for specific domains (enterprise, healthcare, embedded systems); and
- relations between viewpoints, frameworks, and models with other knowledge management mechanisms such as perspectives, principles, styles, and patterns.
Questions?
For more information about the focus, contact the Guest Editors:
- Patricia Lago, VU University Amsterdam
- Paris Avgeriou, University of Groningen
- Rich Hilliard, Software systems architect, USA
For author guidelines: www.computer.org/software/author.htm
For submission details: software@computer.org
Submission Information
Manuscripts must not exceed 5,400 words including figures and tables, which count for 200 words each. Submissions in excess of these limits may be rejected without refereeing. The articles we deem within the theme's scope will be peer-reviewed and are subject to editing for magazine style, clarity, organization, and space. We reserve the right to edit the title of all submissions. Be sure to include the name of the theme or special issue you are submitting for.
Articles should have a practical orientation, and be written in a style accessible to practitioners. Overly complex, purely research-oriented or theoretical treatments are not appropriate. Articles should be novel. IEEE Software does not republish material published previously in other venues, including other periodicals and formal conference/workshop proceedings, whether previous publication was in print or in electronic form.