Improving System Quality through Software Architecture

Professor David Garlan

Institute for Software Research, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University

Date and time: 11.30am - 12.30pm, Friday 3rd April, 2009

Venue: 10.08.04 (Building 10, Level 8, Room 4)

Abstract:

Over  the past decade and a half  there has been  increasing understanding about the role that software architecture can and should play in mastering the complexity of software system design, providing a basis for early  analysis and prediction,  ensuring that  systems retain their  structural integrity over  time, and enabling reuse and dramatic  cost reductions.  In  this talk  I outline  some of  the key insights  that  drive the  field  and  consider  some of  the  salient features of software architecture as they relate to  improving the dependability of software-based systems, focusing on techniques to

(a)    express architectural descriptions precisely and unambiguously;

(b)   provide soundness criteria  and tools  to check  consistency of architectural designs;

(c)    analyse those designs to determine implied system properties;

(d)   (d)  exploit  patterns  and   styles,  and  check  whether  a  given architecture conforms to a given pattern;

(e)    guarantee that the implementation of a system is consistent with its architectural design; and

(f)     support self-healing capabilities.

About the speaker:

David Garlan is a Professor of Computer Science and directs the Institute for Software Research (ISR) International and various Professional Software Engineering Programs in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University.  He received his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon in 1987.  His interests include software architecture, self-adaptive systems, formal methods, and software development environments. He is considered to be one of the founders of the field of software architecture, and, in particular, formal representation and analysis of architectural designs.  He has published numerous articles and co-authored two software architecture books now widely used in postgraduate teaching.

 

For further information about this talk, please contact Professor Heinz Schmidt: Heinz.Schmidt@rmit.edu.au.


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