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Trends in continuous evaluation of software architectures

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Abstract

The software industry is increasingly facing the need for continuous deployment of systems. This leads to the adoption of continuous activities, including planning, integration, and deployment (a.k.a. Continuous Software Engineering (CSE)). At the same time, systems should exhibit high-quality architectures, which are often achieved through architecture evaluation methods. However, there is little insight of how such evaluation happens in the context of CSE. To cover this gap, we investigate in this work the state of the art of continuous evaluation of software architectures in CSE, including agile processes like SCRUM. For this, we systematically examine the literature to collect and summarize evidence. Our results show a diversity of means for evaluating architectures in continuous mode to support the continuous evolution of systems. We also found how such evaluation has been incorporated within continuous development processes and agile processes like SCRUM and Crystal. We finally derive the main trends and open issues in the area, aiming to support the community to better understand and further consolidate the field of continuous evaluation of software architectures.

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Notes

  1. Due to page limitation, this work presents only the most relevant elements of the SMS protocol and the main information about SMS conduction. Detailed documentation is available in https://bit.ly/3FUYBEC.

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Funding

This study was funded by FAPESP (2015/24144-7 and 2019/23633-1) and CNPq (313245/2021-5).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Systems, University of São Paulo, São Carlos, Brazil

    Rodrigo C. Soares, Vinicius dos Santos & Elisa Yumi Nakagawa

  2. Department of Informatics, Rey Juan Carlos University, Madrid, Spain

    Rafael Capilla

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  1. Rodrigo C. Soares
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  2. Rafael Capilla
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  3. Vinicius dos Santos
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  4. Elisa Yumi Nakagawa
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Correspondence to Rodrigo C. Soares.

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Soares, R.C., Capilla, R., dos Santos, V. et al. Trends in continuous evaluation of software architectures. Computing 105, 1957–1980 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00607-023-01161-1

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