Evaluating software architectural styles based on quality features through hierarchical analysis and Fuzzy Integral (FAHP)

Nowadays, software development processes are usually based on methods which use styles of software architecture. Indeed, software development styles differently support different quality features. In architecture styles, tactics are used for achieving quality features. Stakeholders usually request several quality features simultaneously. In this paper, a framework has been proposed in which tactics are first used to evaluate and compare the architectures with regard to only one quality feature. Then, the Analytical Hierarchy Process of Fuzzy Integral used to enhance architecture selection accuracy which is based on all the requests of Stakeholders. Using the fuzzy hierarchical process, we considered the Stakeholders´ requests for quality features in the process of selecting the desirable style based on 4 factors: (1) dependency between the features in determining their weight, (2) contrast between the features (by a negative impact), (3) interaction between the features (by a positive impact), and (4) sorting out ambiguities (clarifying ambiguous and unknown values). Since Stakeholders are highly sensitive to the quality features of their requirements, our contribution in this paper is a method to select the architecture styles based on the features.