Software architecture evolution: Description and management process

We present in this paper a model for describing and managing the software architecture evolution, called SAEV (Software Architecture EVolution model). We define a software architecture throw its architectural elements, mainly configurations, components, connectors and their interfaces. We associate to these architectural elements three abstraction levels: Meta level, Architectural level, Application level. SAEV, offers a whole of concepts and evolution operations allowing a software architecture to evolve at different levels. SAEV can be positioned at the meta level to manage the evolution of the architectural level, and it can be positioned at the architectural level to manage the evolution of the application level. At each level the evolution operations are described by evolution strategies and evolution rules. The later must respect the invariants associated with the considered level's architectural elements in order to guarantee the coherence of the architecture across the evolution. SAEV proposes also an uniform mechanism that describes the execution process to carry out a given evolution.