Review Criteria Catalog
The criteria used to evaluate and review the different modeling languages originate partly from the various review papers identified during the first literature search [BWKG14, BBF+18, BCR+19, KS19, NMJ19, SDA12, QK18]. However, this review considers only criteria aspects that may be relevant for the subsequent ADL selection. Therefore, some criteria have been slightly modified or extended. The selected criteria sets from the review papers are language characteristics, cloud modeling capabilities and tooling support. In addition to this more general perspective, two other criteria sets are examined that focus on aspects directly related to the quality model and the aim to represent CNA architectures formally: representation of proposed entities and architectural evaluations. The following presents a detailed description of the different aspects considered and analyzed within the mentioned criteria sets.
Cloud Modeling Capabilities
When modeling a system’s architecture in the context of the cloud, different aspects are desirable to be considered within the model. One critical aspect is the separation into deployable components, especially due to their subsequent distribution across one or even multiple cloud environments. Consequently, a modeling language’s ability to describe the application structure is of great importance [BBF+18, p. 9]. Therefore, the following criteria describe which aspects the modeling language supports regarding the structure of an application as well as its cloud environment. The criteria originate from Bergmayr et al.’s review [BBF+18] but were slightly modified regarding the aspects they consider and how they are described.
Application structure
Examining the application structure aspect considers which parts of an application the modeling language is able to represent and how. It focuses especially on the concept of components and their interactions represented as connectors [BBF+18, p. 9]. In addition, other aspects related to the structure of an application, such as the ability to formulate constraints or requirements, are also considered.
Cloud environment
This criterion analyzes whether the modeling language is able to represent aspects related to the cloud environment and, if so, how these aspects can be represented. For example, an important aspect is the representation of used services provided by the target cloud environment. This could be, for instance, the usage of a storage service with its data store solution [BBF+18, KS19]. Additionally, the possibility of representing configurational aspects of resources and required services or modelling infrastructure-related aspects is also relevant in the cloud context [BBF+18, p. 9f.].
References
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