Automatic enforcement of architectural design rules

Current techniques for modeling software architecture lacks support for the modeling of architectural design rules, i.e. rules defined by the architect that have to be followed in the detailed design. This is a problem in the context of Model-Driven Development in which it is assumed that major design artifacts are represented as formal or semi-formal models. The PhD project presented in this paper addresses this problem by the definition of a method for modeling architectural design rules in a form that is easily interpreted by developers. A tool for automatic validation of the design model against the architectural rules has also been developed. The method is designed to be easy to learn and use for both architects and developers. As a part of the PhD project the method is also currently validated in a case study on an industrial development project.