Development of a Methodology, Software -- Suite and Service for Supporting Software Architecture Reconstruction

Having an up-to-date knowledge of the architecture of a software system is of primary importance, since it affects every aspect of software development. It aids under-standing the system, helps defining high level conditions and constraints for making decisions, supports dependency analysis, logical grouping of components, evaluation of high level design, etc. During the evolution of a software, the documentation of its architecture may not be maintained because of the strict deadlines, resulting in an increasing gap between the architectural design and implementation. The national grant project named GOP-1.1.1-07/1-2008-0077 sponsored by the New Hungarian Development Plan, supports the development of appropriate tools for automatic architecture reconstruction and reverse engineering of software systems. The project will result in a complex solution for automatic architecture reconstruction of software systems by offering both a flexible and highly customizable set of services and a state-of-the-art boxed product. On one hand, architecture reconstruction in the scope of the project deals with visualization of the components and their relations. On the other hand, tracking the changes of the architectural elements during software evolution will also be supported. The tools of the project are being developed by FrontEndART Ltd. while the theoretical and technological background is provided by the Department of Software Engineering at University of Szeged.