A Requirement-Based Method to Software Architecture Testing

In this paper, after a review on well-known scenario-based methods of SA evaluation, a different approach is introduced to find architectural defects. The proposed method at first, elicits the problems threatening the system's success. Then based on the analysis of the problems and probable defects which could cause the problems, tests are designed and applied to the system in order to find the real defects specially the architectural ones. Results show that the proposed method could be use to find those architectural defects which may be remained covered after applying the other methods. Therefore, it could be used as a mean to SA testing and also as a complementary mechanism along with well-known SA evaluation methods. The proposed method and its components are presented in a systematic form. An illustration of its application on the architecture of a real system is presented and the results are compared with the results of applying ATAM on the same architecture.