Architecture rationalization: a methodology for architecture verifiability, traceability and completeness

Architecture modeling is practiced extensively in the software industry but there is little attention paid to the traceability, verifiability and completeness of architecture designs. Deficiencies in any of these three areas in an architecture model can be costly and risky to projects. We propose the architecture rationalization method (ARM), which is based on architecture rationale, to overcome these issues. ARM makes use of both qualitative and quantitative rationales for selecting architecture designs. Quantitative rationale uses a model based on costs, benefits and risks in the selection process. ARM provides a method to determine when an architecture model is complete in that the level of details represented by the architecture design is sufficient. We apply ARM to a real-life industry case retrospectively to demonstrate how ARM can overcome issues surrounding traceability and verifiability.