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While many maintainability metrics have been explicitly designed for service-based systems, tool-supported approaches to automatically collect these metrics are lacking. Especially in the context of microservices, decentralization and technological heterogeneity may pose challenges for static analysis. We therefore propose the modular and extensible RAMA approach (RESTful API Metric Analyzer) to calculate such metrics from machine-readable interface descriptions of RESTful services. We also provide prototypical tool support, the RAMA CLI, which currently parses the formats OpenAPI, RAML, and WADL and calculates 10 structural service-based metrics proposed in scientific literature. To make RAMA measurement results more actionable, we additionally designed a repeatable benchmark for quartile-based threshold ranges (green, yellow, orange, red). In an exemplary run, we derived thresholds for all RAMA CLI metrics from the interface descriptions of 1,737 publicly available RESTful APIs. Researchers and practitioners can use RAMA to evaluate the maintainability of RESTful services or to support the empirical evaluation of new service interface metrics.
Scenario-based analysis is a comprehensive technique to evaluate software quality and can provide more detailed insights than e.g. maintainability metrics. Since such methods typically require significant manual effort, we designed a lightweight scenario-based evolvability evaluation method. To increase efficiency and to limit assumptions, the method exclusively targets service- and microservice-based systems. Additionally, we implemented web-based tool support for each step. Method and tool were also evaluated with a survey (N=40) that focused on change effort estimation techniques and hands-on interviews (N=7) that focused on usability. Based on the evaluation results, we improved method and tool support further. To increase reuse and transparency, the web-based application as well as all survey and interview artifacts are publicly available on GitHub. In its current state, the tool-supported method is ready for first industry case studies.
Towards a practical maintainability quality model for service- and microservice-based systems
(2017)
Although current literature mentions a lot of different metrics related to the maintainability of service-based systems (SBSs), there is no comprehensive quality model (QM) with automatic evaluation and practical focus. To fill this gap, we propose a Maintainability Model for Services (MM4S), a layered maintainability QM consisting of service properties (SPs) related with automatically collectable Service Metrics (SMs). This research artifact created within an ongoing Design Science Research (DSR) project is the first version ready for detailed evaluation and critical feedback. The goal of MM4S is to serve as a simple and practical tool for basic maintainability estimation and control in the context of BSs and their specialization
microservice-based systems (μSBSs).
In a time of digital transformation, the ability to quickly and efficiently adapt software systems to changed business requirements becomes more important than ever. Measuring the maintainability of software is therefore crucial for the long-term management of such products. With service-based systems (SBSs) being a very important form of enterprise software, we present a holistic overview of such metrics specifically designed for this type of system, since traditional metrics – e.g. object oriented ones – are not fully applicable in this case. The selected metric candidates from the literature review were mapped to 4 dominant design properties: size, complexity, coupling, and cohesion. Microservice-based systems (μSBSs) emerge as an agile and fine grained variant of SBSs. While the majority of identified metrics are also applicable to this specialization (with some limitations), the large number of services in combination with technological heterogeneity and decentralization of control significantly impacts automatic metric collection in such a system. Our research therefore suggests that specialized tool support is required to guarantee the practical applicability of the presented metrics to μSBSs.
IT environments that consist of a very large number of rather small structures like microservices, Internet of Things (IoT) components, or mobility systems are emerging to support flexible and agile products and services in the age of digital transformation. Biological metaphors of living and adaptable ecosystems with service-oriented enterprise architectures provide the foundation for self-optimizing, resilient run-time environments and distributed information systems. We are extending Enterprise Architecture (EA) methodologies and models that cover a high degree of heterogeneity and distribution to support the digital transformation and related information systems with micro-granular architectures. Our aim is to support flexibility and agile transformation for both IT and business capabilities within adaptable digital enterprise architectures. The present research paper investigates mechanisms for integrating Microservice Architectures (MSA) by extending original enterprise architecture reference models with elements for more flexible architectural metamodels and EA-mini-descriptions.
The fast moving process of digitization1 demands flexibility in order to adapt to rapidly changing business requirements and newly emerging business opportunities. New features have to be developed and deployed to the production environment a lot faster. To be able to cope with this increased velocity and pressure, a lot of software developing companies have switched to a Microservice Architecture (MSA) approach. Applications built this way consist of several fine-grained and heterogeneous services that are independently scalable and deployable. However, the technological and business architectural impacts of microservices based applications directly affect their integration into the digital enterprise architecture. As a consequence, traditional Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) approaches are not able to handle the extreme distribution, diversity, and volatility of micro-granular systems and services. We are therefore researching mechanisms for dynamically integrating large amounts of microservices into an adaptable digital enterprise architecture.
To bring a pattern-based perspective to the SOA vs. microservices discussion, we qualitatively analyzed a total of 118 SOA patterns from 2 popular catalogs for their (partial) applicability to microservices. Patterns had to hold up to 5 derived microservices principles to be applicable. 74 patterns (63%) were categorized as fully applicable, 30 (25%) as partially applicable, and 14 (12%) as not applicable. Most frequently violated microservices characteristics werde Decentralization and Single System. The findings suggest that microservices and SOA share a large set of architectural principles and solutions in the general space of service-based systems while only having a small set of differences in specific areas.
A configuration-management-database driven approach for fabric-process specification and automation
(2014)
In this paper we describe an approach that integrates a Configuration- Management-Database into fabric-process specification and automation in order to consider different conditions regarding to cloud-services. By implementing our approach, the complexity of fabric processes gets reduced. We developed a prototype by using formal prototyping principles as research methods and integrated the Configuration-Management-Database Command into the Workflow- Management-System Activiti. We used this prototype to evaluate our approach. We implemented three different fabric-processes and show that by using our approach the complexity of these three fabric-processes gets reduced.
The digital transformation is today’s dominant business transformation having a strong influence on how digital services and products are designed in a service-dominant way. A popular underlying theory of value creation and economic exchange that is known as the service-dominant (S-D) logic can be connected to many successful digital business models. However, S-D logic by itself is abstract. Companies cannot directly use it as an instrument for business model innovation and design in an easy way. To address this a comprehensive ideation method based on S-D logic is proposed, called service-dominant design (SDD). SDD is aimed at supporting firms in the transition to a service- and value-oriented perspective. The method provides a simplified way to structure the ideation process based on four model components. Each component consists of practical implications, auxiliary questions and visualization techniques that were derived from a literature review, a use case evaluation of digital mobility and a focus group discussion. SDD represents a first step of having a toolset that can support established companies in the process of service- and value-orientation as part of their digital transformation efforts.
Die digitale Transformation ist die heute vorherrschende geschäftliche Transformation, die einen starken Einfluss darauf hat, wie digitale Dienstleistungen und Produkte dienstleistungsdominant gestaltet werden. Eine beliebte zugrundeliegende Theorie der Wertschöpfung und des wirtschaftlichen Austauschs, die als dienstleistungsdominante Logik (S-D) bekannt ist, kann mit vielen erfolgreichen digitalen Geschäftsmodellen verbunden werden. Allerdings ist die S-D-Logik an sich abstrakt. Unternehmen können sie nicht ohne Weiteres als Instrument für die Innovation und Gestaltung von Geschäftsmodellen nutzen. Um dies zu ändern, wird eine umfassende Ideenfindungsmethode auf der Grundlage der S-D-Logik vorgeschlagen, die als service-dominantes Design (SDD) bezeichnet wird. SDD zielt darauf ab, Unternehmen beim Übergang zu einer service- und wertorientierten Perspektive zu unterstützen. Die Methode bietet eine vereinfachte Möglichkeit, den Ideenfindungsprozess auf der Grundlage von vier Modellkomponenten zu strukturieren. Jede Komponente besteht aus praktischen Implikationen, Hilfsfragen und Visualisierungstechniken, die aus einer Literaturrecherche, einer Anwendungsfallbewertung der digitalen Mobilität und einer Fokusgruppendiskussion abgeleitet wurden. SDD ist ein erster Schritt zu einem Toolset, das etablierte Unternehmen bei der Service- und Werteorientierung im Rahmen ihrer digitalen Transformation unterstützen kann.