Integration of Software Architecture in Requirements Elicitation for Rapid Software Development

Software Architecture describes system components and their connections. Requirement elicitation catering the perspective of software architecture is quite challenging and relatively less explored research area for the rapid software development. It has gain growing interest due to reusability of existing modules with less cost and quick developmental time. Software architecture in the context of requirement engineering is an abstraction of software system performing a particular task with the help of group of executable architectural components. In this paper, systematic literature review is adapted as a methodology to explore software architectural elements that provides better performance and simplicity in requirement engineering. We analyzed, reviewed and listed the strategies, tools & techniques along with state-of-the-art mechanisms, pros and cons and application areas. Architectural components that are already implemented in the requirement elicitation process for effective software architectural design are briefly analyzed. Purpose of the paper is to explore and discuss the elements that make software architecture more integral and flexible for traceability of requirements. Another purpose is to identify relation between the software requirements and architecture along with exploring the components to bridge gap between requirements and architecture by critically evaluating industrially and academically proposed methods, tools and frameworks. We also highlighted the open research challenges of Software architecture in requirement elicitation for better software development. In the later section, a resource bank is created acting as a valuable model that encompasses targeted relevant groups, sub-groups with latest software architecture tools & techniques, methods and framework sources to facilitate effective requirement engineering.