Architecture Evaluation Tools

While on the subject of architecture evaluation.... There are two tools that can help you evaluate the structural quality of your architecutre and design. Note that this is not the same type of evaluation I talked about in the last post.

The structure evaluation needs the architecture to be implemented (at least at a skeletal level). Also it is mainly based on depenency and complexity evaluation and not on how well the quality attributes are addressed (this is why it is "structural evaluation"). Nevertheless, these tools are important and can help you maintain the integrity of the design.

The first tool is Lattix LDM. To actually understand how it works, you can read an evaluation of .NET Framework using this tool.

The other tool is Stucture101. In addition to tracking dependencies (as Lattrix does), it also tries to evaluate the complexity of packages. Again you can get an idea of how it works by looking at an evaluation of a framework--this time it is Spring.

These tools do not absolve you from evaluating how the architecture fits the requirements or how one architectural option is better than another in fufilling a quality attribute while not contradicting another. They "just" help you with balancing the structure of the architecture and design once you decide what you want to build. This "just" can save you a lot of troubles as your architecture and design evolves.

Posted by Arnon Rotem-Gal-Oz at 06:23 AM  Permalink