SDMF: Systematic Decision-making Framework for Evaluation of Software Architecture

The software architectural decisions are crucial and critical to the success of a software project life cycle. The set of relevant design decisions affects the quality of the software architecture. In this paper, a systematic decision-making framework is proposed by considering management and organizational factors and design goals/parameters that affect software architecture (SA) and integrating it with the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) to evaluate and select the quality software architecture. An illustrative case study is also mentioned to show the applicability of the proposed framework. The framework suggested in the paper should enable an architect and other key stakeholders of the software architecture to efficiently identify, evaluate and select the software architecture.