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Software Architecture Assessment for Sustainability: A Case Study

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Software Architecture (ECSA 2024)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 14889))

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Abstract

Software Architecture (SA) assessment provides an analysis of the quality of a high-level view of software-intensive systems, serving as a quality assurance mechanism. Sustainability is a crucial quality for digital ecosystems and as such, it presents assessment challenges due to the multi-dimensional nature of sustainability. This study addresses the challenge of sustainability assessment in SA. Due to a lack of guided sustainability assessment methods, we use an SA evaluation blueprint which we tailored for sustainability assessment. We use a blend of experience-based and quantitative assessment techniques for the assessment of design decision options. The SA assessment is performed on a case study integrating a SaaS-based solution, a learning management system called Canvas, within an educational institute. Our assessment provides an overview of trade-offs between design decision options. We use elements from an open-source toolkit (SAF Toolkit) and a Sustainability Impact Score (SIS) to identify the possible trade-offs and sustainability impacts across different sustainability dimensions. The assessment results identify the trade-offs between QAs and sustainability dimensions (mainly environmental) per design option. This information can help architects make informed decisions about sustainable design choices. Our evaluation method is designed to allow for the assessment of other SAs.

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Data Availability Statement

The data for the study has been made available as a replication package online [11].

Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.instructure.com/canvas.

  2. 2.

    https://consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2024/02/05/environmental-social-and-governance-esg-ratings-council-and-parliament-reach-agreement/.

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Acknowledgements

This publication is part of the project SustainableCloud (OCENW.M20.243) of the research programme Open Competition which is (partly) financed by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). This work is partially funded by Enabling Energy Efficient Community through Context-Aware IoT framework and Sustainable Software (E-CAISS) Project (SPARC/2019-2020/P2323/SL) supported under the SPARC scheme. We are grateful to our colleagues and the solution architects at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, for donating their time, expertise, and support towards this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Iffat Fatima & Patricia Lago

Authors
  1. Iffat Fatima
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  2. Patricia Lago
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Correspondence to Iffat Fatima .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

    Matthias Galster

  2. University of Bergamo, Bergamo, Italy

    Patrizia Scandurra

  3. University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Tommi Mikkonen

  4. Fraunhofer IESE, Kaiserslautern, Germany

    Pablo Oliveira Antonino

  5. University of São Paulo, São Carlos, São Paulo, Brazil

    Elisa Yumi Nakagawa

  6. University of Castilla-La Mancha, Albacete, Spain

    Elena Navarro

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Fatima, I., Lago, P. (2024). Software Architecture Assessment for Sustainability: A Case Study. In: Galster, M., Scandurra, P., Mikkonen, T., Oliveira Antonino, P., Nakagawa, E.Y., Navarro, E. (eds) Software Architecture. ECSA 2024. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14889. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-70797-1_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-70797-1_16

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