Towards a reliable mapping between performance and security tactics, and architectural patterns

ABSTRACT

The software architecture of a system-to-be affects the fulfillment of the desired quality requirements for this system. For building upon common knowledge and best practices, the use of architectural patterns in the software architecture has shown to be valuable. Besides their functional properties, each architectural pattern has benefits and liabilities regarding the fulfillment of quality requirements. Whereas architectural patterns contribute to the fulfillment of several quality requirements positively or negatively in a larger scale, tactics aim at improving one specific quality requirement in a more local manner. In order to tailor a software architecture for satisfying one or more specific quality requirements, tactics have to be integrated into the structure of the architectural patterns. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between several architectural patterns and performance as well as security tactics. We study how easily one tactic can be implemented in an architectural pattern. Based on our investigation, we provide mappings between the architectural patterns and tactics. Additionally, we provide a reasoning for the relations we found. To discover the relevant factors for creating reliable relations, we conduct an experiment at the EuroPLoP 2015 as a Focus Group. We describe the definition and planning of this experiment. The results will be used to define a method for creating a reliable mapping between tactics and architectural patterns. The expected target audience for our paper is software architects as well as researchers with an interest in software architectures and controlled experiments.

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Index Terms

• Computing methodologies

  • Machine learning

• General and reference

  • Cross-computing tools and techniques

    • Performance

• Security and privacy

• Social and professional topics

  • Computing / technology policy

    • Computer crime

  • Professional topics

    • Management of computing and information systems

      • System management

        • Quality assurance

• Software and its engineering

  • Software notations and tools

    • General programming languages

      • Language features

        • Patterns

  • Software organization and properties

    • Software system structures

      • Distributed systems organizing principles

        • Client-server architectures

      • Software architectures