SAIN: A Community-Wide Software Architecture INfrastructure

Joshua Garcia, Mehdi Mirakhorli, Lu Xiao, Sam Malek, Rick Kazman, Yuanfang Cai, Nenad Medvidovic

Abstract: Software Architecture is the most important determinant of the functional and non-functional attributes of a system [1]–[3]. Put simply, software systems “live and die” by their architectures [4]. Despite the importance, the architecture of a software system is often not explicitly documented, especially in the prevalent Agile methods in the past decades. Instead, the architecture of a system often becomes hidden in the myriad system implementation details, and gradually decays and accumulates grime-causing significant challenges to its long-term evolution and maintenance [5]–[8]. Recovering, understanding, and updating a system's architecture is an important facet of overcoming this challenge to support the evolution and maintenance of long-lived software systems.