TRUST-BY-CONTRACT: MODELLING, ANALYSING AND PREDICTING BEHAVIOUR OF SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURES

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Schmidt, Heinz | Poernomo, Iman | Reussner, Ralf

Affiliations: School of Computer Science and Software Engineering Monash University, Australia | DSTC Pty Ltd Australia

Abstract: Architecture description languages (ADLs) are used to specify high-level, compositional views of a software application. ADL research focuses on software composed of prefabricated parts, so-called software components. ADLs usually come equipped with rigorous state-transition style semantics, facilitating verification and analysis of specifications. Consequently, ADLs are well suited to configuring distributed and event-based systems. However, additional expressive power is required for the description of enterprise software architectures in particular, those built upon newer middleware, such as implementations of Javas EJB specification, or Microsofts COM+/.NET. The enterprise requires distributed software solutions that are scalable, business-oriented and mission-critical. We can make progress toward attaining these qualities at various stages of the software development process. In particular, progress at the architectural level can be leveraged through use of an ADL that incorporates trust and dependability analysis. Also, current industry approaches to enterprise development do not address several important architectural design issues. The TrustME ADL is designed to meet these requirements, through combining approaches to software architecture specification with rigorous design-by-contract ideas. In this paper, we focus on several aspects of TrustME that facilitate specification and analysis of middleware-based architectures for trusted enterprise computing systems.

Journal: Journal of Integrated Design & Process Science, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 25-51, 2001