Empirically-grounded Reference Architectures: A Proposal

A reference architecture describes core elements of the software architecture for systems that stem from the same domain. A reference architecture ensures interoperability of systems through standardization. It also facilitates the instantiation of new concrete architectures. However, we currently lack procedures for systematically designing reference architectures that are empirically-grounded. Being empirically-grounded would increase the validity and reusability of a reference architecture. We therefore present an approach which helps systematically design reference architectures. Our approach consists of six steps performed by the software architect and domain experts. It helps design reference architectures either from scratch, or based on existing architecture artifacts. We also illustrate how our approach could be applied to the design of two existing reference architectures found in literature.