A Concept and a Multitenant Web Application for Interactive Software Architecture Analysis

The Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM) is a well-known method for the early evaluation of software architecture decisions based on the formulation of quality scenarios. Although widely recognized as beneficial, several limitations of ATAM have become apparent over time that limit its applicability. In this paper, we propose the concept of an interactive web-based application that mitigates some of these limitations while opening the possibility for further analysis based on collected ATAM projects, e.g. based on artificial intelligence. Thereby, we address the following limitations of ATAM: a general need for tool support, the need for an overview of ATAM results, the need for a consistent documentation of an ATAM process, the need for interactive and collaborative process execution among stakeholders, and the benefits of supporting multitenancy for architecture analysis. This applies in particular to systems with microservice architecture in order to document a large number of individual components and to make the documentation accessible to everyone involved in the system. The proposed concept, Interactive Software Architecture Analysis (ISAA), consists of a requirements analysis, an analysis model, a concept for interactive visualization, and a set of use cases. We demonstrate the feasibility of our approach by a software prototype in the form of custom modules for the Drupal Content Management System.