A knowledge-assisted framework to bridge functional and architecturally significant requirements
Preethu Rose Anish, Balaji Balasubramaniam · 2014
The disciplines of requirements engineering (RE) and software architecture (SA) are fundamental to the success of software projects. The synergistic relationship between these two disciplines has long been acknowledged by both academicians and practitioners alike. To build successful and cost-effective software systems, we must understand and leverage the linkages between functional and architectural requirements. We discuss a knowledge-assisted approach that establishes traceability between functional and architectural requirements. The approach classifies requirements into the problem context (functional) and a solution (architectural) context. The functional context is called Functional Requirement Viewpoint (FRV). The architectural context is further categorized into three sub-contexts namely the Functional Architecture Viewpoint (FAV), the Technical Architecture Viewpoint (TAV) and the Deployment Architecture Viewpoint (DAV). Though the approach separates the problem domain and the solution domain explicitly; it facilitates development of requirements and architectural specifications concurrently; appreciating the necessary interplay between the two.