# Research Infusion 2008

# Potential Tool and Technology Candidate

**[Contact Information]{.underline}**

Name of Tool/Technology: V&V of UML Dynamic Specifications (U101)

Name of Technology Provider: West Virginia University

Primary Point of Contact (PPC): Dr Hany H. Ammar

PPC Phone No.: (304) 293-0405 X2514

PPC e-mail: <hammar@wvu.edu>

Alternate Contact Name (APC): Dr Tim Menzies

APC Phone No.: (304) 293-0405 X2521

APC e-mail: <Tim@menzies.us>

Technology Provider Website: <http://www.csee.wvu.edu/~ammar/>

Technology Provider Address: 739 Engineering Sciences Building,

Lane Department of Computer Sc. and Electrical Engineering,

> West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506

Tel. (304) 293-0405

**[Tool/Technology Details]{.underline}**

Description of Tool/Technology: Defining and investigating metrics for
domain architectures. Such metrics should be based on a theoretical
background, primarily on information theory, and they should be specific
to the architectural level.

Commercial or Research Derived: Research

Product of SARP? Yes No

Potential Benefits: Define such metrics so as to reflect relevant
qualities of domain architectures, and to alert the software architect
to risks in the early stages of architectural design

Supported Platforms: PC, Windows

Required Inputs: UML models extracted from StarUML or Rose-RT

Outputs Produced: Architecture Metrics

Applicable to Software Assurance? Yes No

Applicable to Software Development? Yes No

**[Maturity Level]{.underline}**

Applied to Real Problems? Yes No

If Yes, Level of Success Achieved:

Already in Use within NASA? Yes No

If Yes, at what center(s):

**[Support]{.underline}**

User/Ref. Documentation Available: Yes

Phone Support Available: No

Is Tool/Technology Developer willing to support infusion effort? Yes No

**[Licensing]{.underline}**

Is Tool/Technology Provider willing to provide Evaluation Copy for
extended period of time? Yes No

**[Other Information]{.underline}**

References to relevant technical papers and URL for this product or its
parent:

<http://sarpresults.ivv.nasa.gov/ViewResearch/124.jsp>

<http://www.csee.wvu.edu/swarch/public_html/SARATool/>

Research product objective: (Select **all** that apply)

Tool

Method or Technique

Process

Other (Please specify)

     

Description of research product objective:

> The Software Architecture Risk Assessment (SARA) Tool is a utility
> that provides software engineers and developers the ability to compute
> and analyze different architectural risk factors of software
> architectures modeled using UML. These risk factors include
> maintainability-based risk, reliability-based risk, and
> requirement-based risk.

What **differentiates the research product** from related research and
from commercially-available products?      

Target application domain type:

Autonomous Systems

AI other than Robotics

Business Automated Data Processing

Collaboration

Command and Control

Communications

Diagnosis

Multi-Agent

Multi-Threaded

Navigation / Guidance

Real-Time

Robotics

Scientific

Security

Software Development Tools (Tools for building tools)

Other (Specify)

     

Target software engineering areas:

Project Management including tool selection

Measurement of software artifacts

Requirements

Specification

Design

Implementation

Maintenance

Process Management

Configuration Management

QA

Safety

V & V

Other (Specify)

     

What are the **key characteristics of a target application that
determine the applicability** (or not) of the research?

Deals primarily with assessing the dynamic attributes of software
architectures modeled using UML.

What does a **software development project** need to do to make use of
the research product?

Develop UML artifacts in StarUML or Rational Rose Real-Time UML
development tools

What do you see as the next steps **that you need to take to support
tech infusion of the research** into practice at NASA?

Make the tool robust by extending it to support other UML development
tools, to support different assessment methodologies, and to support
product line architectures.

What kind of support does a software development project need to make
use of the research?

Provide training sessions.