An assessment-based architectural approach and a support tool for mobile systems development

This study focuses on choosing correct architecture when developing software for mobile devices. Different environments in the mobile world make several solutions available. Quick and accurate decision making in architecture choosing is crucial in the development process. The research problem was how to decide which architecture should be used in the early phase of a mobile services development. The answer to this question was providing the Assessment Wiki with information about the evaluated architectures used in different projects. In the Assessment Wiki, the architectures can be managed and viewed. Performing architecture evaluation at every time when developing software is not practical. This research focuses on building a tool which saves the information and allow its handling. This tool makes it possible to choose correct architecture. An easytouse collaboration tool called wiki was examined and used to build a website that allows users to enter information about their architectures, requirements and qualities. At the design phase wiki users can look how architectures respond to current quality requirements. Two different wiki engines were studied because the first one didn’t provide all the necessary functionality. The Second one was not either perfect but it had more functionality than the first one. Wiki is supposed to be easytouse but no verification for it was studied. Also this solution’s validation was not done which set limitations to this work. Future research topics are how Assessment Wiki could be used in a developing process and how to get more quantitative information from the architectures. Wiki engine developing must be under observation to polish the solution. Also following Wiki use in several projects would be interesting.