Reference Architecture synthesis

Definition

Research Question

What are the benefits and drawbacks of reference architectures?

Search String

"software reference architecture"

Inclusion Criteria

  • Any type of empirical study regarding software reference architecture benefits or drawbacks
  • Any kind of outcome constructs used to observe software reference architecture is eligible for inclusion
  • Forward and backward 'snowballing' should be considered for the included papers in order to look for additional studies to be included.

Exclusion Criteria

  • Studies not reported in english
  • The paper must be the primary source of the reported study or data. If the paper just reanalyze or review published study or data it should not be considered.

Papers

  • Benefits and Drawbacks of Reference Architectures
  • A framework for analysis and design of software reference architectures
  • From an e-business revenue model to its software reference architecture
  • REARM: A reuse-based economic model for software reference architectures
  • A reference architecture for personal assistant software based in agents and SOA
  • Feature Management applied to on board software building blocks
  • Software Architecture - 7th European Conference, ECSA 2013, Proceedings
  • Technology harmonization - Developing a reference architecture for the ground segment software
  • Lifelog Collaboration Framework for Healthcare Service on Android Platform
  • A systematic mapping of architectures for embedded software
  • Method for examining software product with software architecture specification, involves determining central structural decisions for product, where consistency between code structure and architecture specification is determined
  • A component-based process with separation of concerns for the development of embedded real-time software systems
  • Smart environment software reference architecture
  • A reference architecture for improving security and privacy in internet of things applications
  • Evaluating an embedded software reference architecture - Industrial experience report
  • PuLSE-DSSA - a method for the development of software reference architectures
  • Architecture-centric software evolution by software metrics and design patterns
  • Artifacts of software reference architectures: A case study
  • A Survey on the Benefits and Drawbacks of AUTOSAR
  • Constraints for the design of variability-intensive service-oriented reference architectures–An industrial case study
  • What is software architecture?
  • Towards a multi-layer architecture for scientific virtual laboratories
  • Space on-board software reference architecture
  • Software Reference Architectures - Exploring Their Usage and Design in Practice
  • Modeling of energy-sensitive manufacturing processes
  • A reference architecture for scientific virtual laboratories
  • Concepts and requirements for a cloud-based optimization service
  • CIbSE 2013: 16th Ibero-American Conference on Software Engineering - 10th Workshop Latinoamericano Ingenieria de Software Experimental - Experimental Software Engineering Latin American Workshop, ESELAW 2013
  • Health management engineering environment and open integration platform
  • The Concept of Reference Architectures
  • Space on-board software reference architecture
  • Implications of an open system approach to vehicle health management
  • 2009 Joint Working IEEE/IFIP Conference on Software Architecture and European Conference on Software Architecture, WICSA/ECSA 2009
  • An Overview of the Smart Sensor Inter-agency Reference Testbench (SSIART)
  • Time and space partitioning security components for spacecraft flight software
  • Software reference architecture for smart environments: Perception
  • Software Architecture - 8th European Conference, ECSA 2014, Proceedings
  • Towards an improved stakeholder management for software reference architectures
  • On software reference architectures and their application to the space domain
  • A classification of software reference architectures: Analyzing their success and effectiveness
  • Safe and Secure Software Reuse - 13th International Conference on Software Reuse, ICSR 2013, Proceedings
  • A framework for software reference architecture analysis and review

Evidence

Aggregated Evidence

Conclusion

Research question

Seven effects caused by SRAs increased their belief values after the aggregation. These effects have greater confidence value that any effect before aggregation (i.e., greater confidence level than 40%), and have been reported by at least three out of the five studies

all evidence


            
                
all evidence v2

                
As a result of the aggregation process, several benefits of SRAs have considerably increased their belief value: interoperability of software systems, reduced developments costs, improved communication among stakeholders, reduced risk due to previous experiences, use of best practices, and reduced time-to-market. Regarding drawbacks, the studies agree that an SRAa SRA weakly negatively - negatively influence the required learning curve for developers before they could construct software systems.

The aggregation also identified three effects of SRAs that were contradictory in the literature: SRA complexity, flexibility of suppliers, and terminology conventions. We have analyzed the context of studies that reported these results, and elaborate hypothesis to explain these contradictions.