Exploiting ADLs to specify architectural styles induced by middleware infrastructures

Architecture definition languages (ADLs) enable the formalization of the architecture of software systems and the execution of preliminary analyses on them. These analyses aim at supporting the identification and solution of design problems in the early stages of software development. We have used ADLs to describe middleware-induced architectural styles. These styles describe the assumptions and constraints that middleware infrastructures impose on the architecture of systems. Our work originates from the belief that the explicit representation of these styles at the architectural level can guide designers in the definition of an architecture compliant with a pre-selected middleware infrastructure, or, conversely can support designers in the identification of the most suitable middleware infrastructure for a specific architecture. In this paper we provide an evaluation of ADLs as to their suitability for defining middleware-induced architectural styles. We identify new requirements for ADLs, and we highlight the importance of existing capabilities. Although our experimentation starts from an attempt to solve a specific problem, the results we have obtained provide general lessons about ADLs, learned from defining the architecture of existing, complex, distributed, running systems.