A reuse-based economic model for software reference architectures

Abstract

The growing size and complexity of software systems, together with critical time-to-market needs, demand new software engineering approaches for software development. To remain competitive, organizations are challenged to make informed and feasible value-driven design decisions in order to ensure the quality of the systems. However, there is a lack of support for evaluating the economic impact of these decisions with regard to software reference architectures. This damages the communication among architects and management, which can result in poor decisions. This paper aims at opening a path in this direction by presenting a pragmatic preliminary economic model to perform cost-benefit analysis on the adoption of software reference architectures as key asset for optimizing architectural decision-making. A preliminary validation based on a retrospective study showed the ability of the model to support a cost-benefit analysis presented to the management of an IT consulting company.