Software Design based on Architecture Conformance

Non-functional properties such as performance are determined by many factors and it is quite difficult to understand the relationships between these factors and the properties involved. Instead of completely understanding the nature of nonfunctional properties, we are examining a design method for finding a proper way to attain the required non-functional properties, in which we actually measure the properties of some modules in the system, and utilize the knowledge gained by the measurement in design activity. Since the properties of modules are easily influenced by its usage and environment, we have to be careful to ensure that the modules show the desired properties. In other words, we can observe that modules impose constraints (e.g. proper usage) on other software modules for the attainment of desired properties. We define the software architecture based on these constraints and introduce the notion of architecture conformance and then discuss how to use conformance in our design activities.