Scenario-based modeling for runtime architecture

Abstract

Runtime architecture, such as the component-and-connector view, expresses runtime components and their interactions. Although the architecture is useful to understand which components and communication methods are used and how the system works in structural ways, a system engineer who is in charge of modeling a system may not catch the architectural description due to the lack of semantics of the architecture. Therefore, supplementing the architecture with behavior modeling is necessary to enhance the seamlessness between software architecture and its detailed design. In this paper, we suggest behavior modeling based on Message Sequence Charts (MSCs) and statecharts for runtime architecture. In order to support the above approach, we perform a case study on Tree Building Control Protocol (TBCP), one of the communication mechanisms for overlay multicasts. The modeling steps we suggest can be a guideline for software engineers in bridging the gap between runtime architecture and behavior models