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A method for dependability evaluation of software architectures

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Abstract

Dependability is an important quality attribute for today’s software systems, and the decisions made at the architectural design stage play a key role in the dependability of software products. Architecture-level dependability evaluation techniques are effective only if they support a practical architecture modelling notation and consider the impact of execution environment, error propagation and usage profile on dependability. Regarding these factors, the objective of this paper is to introduce a new method for evaluating the dependability of software architectures. UML is the de facto standard for modelling software architectures, and DAM is the most comprehensive UML profile supporting dependability annotations. In this paper, UML–DAM models are transformed into a hierarchical and coloured extension of stochastic activity networks and the dependability measures are quantified using the activity-marking oriented reward structures. The transformation and evaluation processes are detailed and implemented in a software tool. Also, to validate the applicability of the method, a case study is presented.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Trustworthy Computing Laboratory, School of Computer Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Hengam St., Resalat Sq., Tehran, 16846-13114, Iran

    Ali Sedaghatbaf & Mohammad Abdollahi Azgomi

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  1. Ali Sedaghatbaf
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  2. Mohammad Abdollahi Azgomi
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Correspondence to Mohammad Abdollahi Azgomi.

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Sedaghatbaf, A., Abdollahi Azgomi, M. A method for dependability evaluation of software architectures. Computing 100, 119–150 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00607-017-0568-3

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