A Three-Dimensional Approach for a Quality-Based Alignment Between Requirements and Architecture

The relation between requirements and architecture is a crucial part of an information system, standing as one of the main challenges for its successful development, with traditional projects focused on the connection of functional requirements with architecture components having a tendency to ignore quality concerns. As the quality attributes of a system support its architecture high level structure and behavior, also being highly related to its early nonfunctional requirements, there is a pressing need to align these two realities. Following our solution for aligning business requirements with services quality characteristics by derivation of a logical architecture, we now propose the specification of a metamodel and method supporting a three-dimensional approach for handling the alignment of quality issues between requirements and architecture. Taking advantage of a cube structure and method definition within a SPEM approach, which is adaptable to model variations, our proposal contributes to an improved aligned and traceable solution.