Multiple objective decision analysis applied to software architectures (MODASA)

A high quality software architecture facilitates development of a high quality software system. To design such architecture, the software architect must consider multiple stakeholders' partially understood and contradictory objectives, and balance the myriad tradeoffs among them. This research examines how to support this explorative software architecture design process. It identifies the important quality attributes to be addressed, and compares the ultimate architecture design alternatives to make the right decisions to address and balance various stakeholders' needs. Contributions include a new model of "separation of concerns" that addresses quality attributes as first-class elements during software design; a new software architecture design process that focuses on important and unresolved requirements arising from conflicting quality attributes; and adaptation of multiple objective decision theory to software engineering, together with software analysis methods that quantify and balance previously incomparable quality attributes; Evaluations demonstrate its effectiveness on understanding and evaluating quality attributes, and analyzing the design alternatives during architecture design process.