Software Engineering Institute

This collection contains a series of documents that summarize how to systematically analyze a software architecture with respect to quality attribute requirements. The purpose of this series is to provide a set of definitions, core concepts, and a framework for reasoning about quality attributes and the satisfaction (or not) of their requirements by an architecture and, eventually, a system. Each report describes a set of mechanisms, such as patterns and tactics, that are commonly used to satisfy quality attribute requirements. The reports also describe how an analyst can determine whether a documented architecture provides enough information to support analysis and, if so, determine whether the architectural decisions contain serious risks relative to the quality attribute requirements. An analyst can use these techniques to determine whether those requirements, represented as a set of quality attribute scenarios, have been sufficiently well specified to support the needs of analysis. The reasoning around each quality attribute should allow an analyst, armed with appropriate architectural documentation, to assess the risks inherent in today’s architectural decisions in light of tomorrow’s anticipated needs.