Effect of architecture configuration on software reliability and performance estimation

Presents a case study that enables the early prediction of software reliability and performance at the architecture design stage. Software architecture design is a crucial stage in the software development process, especially in developing large-scale software. Early prediction of the reliability and performance of the software can be used as a basis for making design decisions. We have studied several common architectural styles, with emphasis on the pipe-filter and the batch-sequential styles, and observed the impact of different configurations on reliability and performance measurements. Moreover, several external factors that might have an influence on these measurements are studied. The results show that altering the architecture configuration to attain higher reliability and/or better performance is feasible depending on variations in the execution environment.