Investigating the Applicability of Architecture Description

The discipline of software architecture has traditionally been concerned with high-level design. In particular, a variety of architecture description languages have been devel-oped that are used to precisely capture a design. Additionally, analysis tools have been constructed that are used to verify particular properties of a design. However, today's trend towards the development of component-based software seems to suggest a new use of software architecture. Because an architecture captures components and the connec-tions among them, it could potentially be used as an organizing abstraction for many of the activities in the software life cycle. In this paper we present an initial investiga-tion into the feasibility of such use. In particular, we closely examine the role system modeling plays in the elds of conguration management and software deployment, and relate this role to the system modeling capabilities of architecture description languages. The outcome of this investigation is twofold. First, we conclude that, for the specic cases of conguration management and software deployment, the use of software archi-tecture brings opportunities to signicantly extend the provided functionality. Second, we present requirements for a number of extensions to typical architecture description languages that are needed to make our approach viable