A Tool for Quality-Driven Architecture Model Transformation

Model-Driven Development (MDD) is about treating models as first class design entities. Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) is an Object Management Group’s initiative that proposes to define a set of non-proprietary standards that will specify interoperable technologies with which to realize MDD with automated transformations. The concept of Model-Driven Architecture lies on models at different abstraction levels, where transformations are performed switching between models. Transformations where the abstraction level is changed are called vertical transformations to separate from horizontal transformations where the abstraction level remains unchanged. Quality-driven model transformation is a horizontal transformation where varying quality attributes of a software product are the driving force for transformation. The quality-driven model transformation relies on the fact that the functionality of the system can be implemented with a wide variety of architectures and therefore with different quality properties. The purpose is to conform to the MDA approach and thus, the goal is to automate the transformation with advanced CASE (Computer Aided Software Engineering Tool) tool. This thesis focuses on designing and implementing a tool extension that automates the quality-driven model transformation. To accomplish this, a rule description language for defining transformation rules was developed. In addition, a CASE tool evaluation was performed to find the most suitable modelling tool to be extended. Finally, the tool extension was implemented to the Telelogic Tau/Developer.