A quantitative algorithm to select software architecture by tradeoff between quality attributes

AbstractIn order to produce and develop a software system, it is necessary to have a method of choosing a suitable software architecture which satisfies the required quality attributes and maintains a trade-off between sometimes conflicting ones. Each software architecture includes a set of design decisions for each of which there are various alternatives, satisfying the quality attributes differently. At the same time various stakeholders with various quality goals participate in decision-making. In this paper a numerical method is proposed that selects the suitable software architecture for certain software according to quality attributes. In this method, for each design decision, different alternatives for a specific software quality attribute must be compared and also the other way around. Multi-criteria decision-making methods are used and, at the same time, time and cost constraints are considered in decision-making. The proposed method applies the stakeholders’ opinions in decision-making according to the degree of their importance and helps the architect to select the best software architecture with more certainty