Abstraction Layered Architecture: Improvements in Maintainability of Commercial Software Code Bases

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aut.embargoNoen_NZ
aut.thirdpc.containsNoen_NZ
dc.contributor.advisorSinha, Roopak
dc.contributor.advisorSpray, John
dc.contributor.authorCheng, Xingbin
dc.date.accessioned2020-05-07T22:53:40Z
dc.date.available2020-05-07T22:53:40Z
dc.date.copyright2020
dc.date.issued2020
dc.date.updated2020-05-07T07:20:35Z
dc.description.abstractSoftware maintainability significantly impacts the productivity of developing and main-taining a software code base in Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). It is saidthat 90% of commercial software is under maintenance, so any improvements in main-tainability can provide high rewards in terms of time and expense. Increased softwaremaintainability can help improve a company’s profitability by directly reducing ongoingsoftware development costs.Abstraction Layered Architecture (ALA) is an innovative reference architecturewhich aims to improve the maintainability of a software code base in the long run.However, its effectiveness in real projects has remained unexplored. This researchexplores the extent to which ALA improves the maintainability of commercial softwarethrough a joint industry/academic project. In this research, an existing Windows desktopapplication from Datamars Limited was re-developed by using ALA and comparedwith the original application based on ISO 25010 maintainability model and ISO25023 maintainability measures. Specifically, the evaluation of ALA’s effectivenesswas carried out based on the five sub-characteristics of maintainability: modularity,reusability, analysability, modifiability and testability.Our experiments show that ALA provides significant improvements in maintain-ability. During the evaluation, it was found that modularity, reusability, analysabilityand testability of the re-developed ALA application were overall higher than for theoriginal application. However, the modifiability of the ALA-based application was2 not as high as expected. We investigated the reason for the low modifiability of theALA application, concluded that modifiability measures may improve during long-termmaintenance of commercial projects, while the other metrics will remain unaffected.en_NZ
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10292/13321
dc.language.isoenen_NZ
dc.publisherAuckland University of Technology
dc.rights.accessrightsOpenAccess
dc.subjectALAen_NZ
dc.subjectMaintainabilityen_NZ
dc.subjectModularityen_NZ
dc.subjectReusabilityen_NZ
dc.subjectAnalysabilityen_NZ
dc.subjectModifiabilityen_NZ
dc.subjectTestabilityen_NZ
dc.titleAbstraction Layered Architecture: Improvements in Maintainability of Commercial Software Code Basesen_NZ
dc.typeThesisen_NZ
thesis.degree.grantorAuckland University of Technology
thesis.degree.levelMasters Theses
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Computer and Information Sciencesen_NZ
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