Scribd
Upload
20 views18 pages

Ch20 - Software Quality Attributes

The document discusses various software quality attributes including maintainability, modifiability, testability, traceability, scalability, reusability, performance, security, and availability. It outlines the importance of these attributes in software design and implementation, emphasizing the need for careful consideration and prioritization of quality requirements. Additionally, it highlights the potential trade-offs and derived functional requirements that may arise from addressing nonfunctional quality attributes.

Uploaded by

Nghi Nguyen Van
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
20 views18 pages

Ch20 - Software Quality Attributes

The document discusses various software quality attributes including maintainability, modifiability, testability, traceability, scalability, reusability, performance, security, and availability. It outlines the importance of these attributes in software design and implementation, emphasizing the need for careful consideration and prioritization of quality requirements. Additionally, it highlights the potential trade-offs and derived functional requirements that may arise from addressing nonfunctional quality attributes.

Uploaded by

Nghi Nguyen Van
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 18

SOFTWARE DESIGN (SWD392)

CH20 SOFTWARE QUALITY ATTRIBUTES


Main Contents
• Software quality attributes
• Exploring quality attributes
• Implementing quality attribute requirements

2 / 18
Software quality attributes
Some software quality attributes

3 / 18
Software quality attributes
Maintainability
● Maintainability is the extent to which software is
capable of being changed after deployment
● Software may need to be modified for the
following reasons:
○ Fix remaining errors: These are errors that
were not detected during testing of the
software prior to deployment.
○ Address performance issues: Performance
problems may not become apparent until
after the software application has been
deployed and is operational in the field.
○ Changes in software requirements: The
biggest reason for software change is changes
in software requirements.

4 / 18
Software quality attributes
Modifiability

• Modifiability is the extent to which software is


capable of being modified during and after
initial development. A modular design
consisting of modules with well-defined
• Decisions such as encapsulating:
– Each finite state machine within a separate state
machine class
– Each interface to a separate external device,
system, or user within a separate boundary class
– Each separate data structure within a separate
data abstraction class, assist with modifiability
5 / 18
Software quality attributes
Testability 1/2

• Testability is the extent to which software is capable of


being tested. It is important to develop a software test plan
early in the software life cycle and to plan on developing
test cases in parallel with software development.
• Engineers can assess the testability of a system by using
various techniques such as encapsulation, interfaces,
patterns, low coupling, and more.
• During detailed design and coding, in which the internal
algorithms for each component are developed, white box
test cases can be developed that test the component
internals using well-known coverage criteria such as
executing every line of code and the outcome of every
decision.
6 / 18
Software quality attributes
Testability 2/2

7 / 18
Software quality attributes
Traceability 1/2

• Traceability is the extent to which products of each phase


can be traced back to products of previous phases.
Requirements traceability is used to ensure that each
software requirement has been designed and implemented.
• It is possible to build traceability into the software
development method, as is the case with the COMET
method. COMET is a use case–based development approach
that starts with use cases and then determines the objects
required to realize each use case.
• Each use case described in the software requirements is
elaborated into a use case–based interaction diagram,
which describes the sequence of object communication
resulting from an external input, as described in the use
case, through to system output.
8 / 18
Software quality attributes
Traceability 2/2

9 / 18
Software quality attributes
Scalability

● Scalability is the extent to which the system is


capable of growing after its initial deployment.
● There are system and software factors to consider
in scalability. From a system perspective, there are
issues of adding hardware to increase the capacity
of the system
● In a centralized system, the scope for scalability is
limited, such as adding more memory, disk, or an
additional CPU.
● A distributed system offers much more scope for
scalability, by adding more nodes to the
configuration.
10 / 18
Software quality attributes
Reusability

• Software reusability is the extent to which software is


capable of being reused. In traditional software reuse,
a library of reusable code components is developed –
for example, a statistical subroutine library.
• Instead of reusing an individual component, it is much
more advantageous to reuse a whole design or
subsystem that consists of the components and their
interconnections.
• Architecture reuse has much greater potential than
component reuse because it is large grained reuse,
which focuses on reuse of requirements and design.

11 / 18
Software quality attributes
Performance

• Performance is also an important consideration in


many systems. Performance modeling of a system at
design time is important to determine whether the
system will meet its performance goals, such as
throughput and response times
• Real-time scheduling is an approach that is
particularly appropriate for hard real-time systems
that have deadlines that must be met (Gomaa 2000)
• A second approach for analyzing the performance of
a design is to use event sequence analysis and to
integrate this with the real-time scheduling theory.

12 / 18
Software quality attributes
Security

● Security is an important consideration in


many systems. There are many potential
threats to distributed application systems,
such as electronic commerce and banking
systems.
● Some of the potential threats are as follows:
○ System penetration
○ Authorization violation
○ Confidentiality disclosure.
○ Integrity compromise
○ Repudiation
○ Denial of service
13 / 18
Software quality attributes
Availability

• Availability addresses system failure and its


impact on users or other systems. There are
times when the system is not available to
users for scheduled system maintenance.

14 / 18
Exploring quality attributes
• Step 1: Start with a broad taxonomy
• Step 2: Reduce the list
• Step 3: Prioritize the attributes
• Step 4: Elicit specific expectations for each
attribute
• Step 5: Specify well-structured quality
requirements

15 / 18
Implementing quality attribute requirements

• Quality attribute trade-offs

16 / 18
Implementing quality attribute requirements

• Designers and programmers will have to determine


the best way to satisfy each quality requirement.
• Although these are nonfunctional requirements, they
can lead to derived functional requirements, design
guidelines, or other types of technical information
that will produce the desired product characteristics.

17 / 18

You might also like