The Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method

This paper presents the Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM), a structured technique for understanding the tradeoffs inherent in design. This method was developed to provide a principled way to evaluate a software architecture's fitness with respect to multiple competing quality attributes: modifiability, security, performance, availability, and so forth. These attributes interact--improving one often comes at the price of worsening one or more of the others as is demonstrated in the paper. The ATAM is a spiral model of design: one of postulating candidate architectures followed by analysis and risk mitigation, leading to refined architectures. KEYWORDS Software architecture analysis, Quality attributes ARCHITECTURE TRADEOFF ANALYSIS Quality attributes of large software systems are principally determined by the system's software architecture. That is, in large systems, the achievement of qualities such as performance, availability, and modifiability depends more on t...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1998
• Where: ICECCS
• Authors: Rick Kazman, Mark H. Klein, Mario Barbacci, Thomas A. Longstaff, Howard F. Lipson, S. Jeromy Carrière
• Keywords: Architecture Tradeoff Analysis, Hardware, ICECCS 1998, Quality Attributes, Software Architecture