Architecture Knowledge Management: Challenges, Approaches, and Tools

Conference · Wed Aug 01 04:00:00 EDT 2007

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSECOMPANION.2007.20· OSTI ID:913599

Babar, Muhammad A; Gorton, Ian

Capturing the technical knowledge, contextual information, and rationale surrounding the design decisions underpinning system architectures can greatly improve the software development process. If not managed, this critical knowledge is implicitly embedded in the architecture, becoming tacit knowledge which erodes as personnel on the project change. Moreover, the unavailability of architecture knowledge precludes organizations from growing their architectural capabilities. In this tutorial, we highlight the benefits and challenges in managing software architecture knowledge. We discuss various approaches to characterize architecture knowledge based on the requirements of a particular domain. We describe various concepts and approaches to manage the architecture knowledge from both management and technical perspectives. We also demonstrate the utility of captured knowledge to support software architecture activities with a case study covering the use of architecture knowledge management techniques and tools in an industrial project.

• Research Organization: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (US)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-76RL01830
• OSTI ID: 913599
• Report Number(s): PNNL-SA-54429
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE
COMPUTER CODES
DESIGN
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT