XML Application for NonFunctional Requirements Management in Systems Project

1
XML Application for Non-Functional
RequirementsManagement in Systems Project

• Carla T. L. L. Silva, Lúcia R. D. Bastos,
• Roberto S. M. Barros and Jaelson F. B. Castro
• ctlls, lrdb, roberto, jbc_at_cin.ufpe.br

2
Rationale

• Companies are continually changing and demanding
  more flexible and complex systems turned to
  improve their business strategies
• The conceptual models have to describe some
  aspects beyond entities and activities
• The main aspects considered in elaborating
  requirement documents
• Considering all relevant elements of the
  organizational environment
• Eliciting functional and non-functional
  requirements
• Ensuring each requirement described is as
  complete as possible
• Ensuring that the documented requirements are in
  conformance with user needs.
• Scenario-based techniques
• dont take into account motivations, intentions
  and alternatives to develop systems
• are not suitable for modeling organizational
  requirements and NFRs

3
Proposal

• This work is aimed at providing an XML-based
  environment for
• automatically integrating the Softgoals
  (representing NFRs) from GRL with the UML Use
  Cases,
• generate and manage extensions of projects and
  Use Cases definitions, and
• allow users (managers) to manage and give
  conformance on project decisions related to
  non-functional requirements.
• XML provide a common language for representing
  both UML and GRL diagrams

4
Functional Requirements and the Use Case
Semantics

• Use Cases in UML
• are used to describe the use of a system by
  actors (any external element that interacts with
  the system)
• is a description of a set of sequences of
  actions, including variants, that a system
  performs that yields an observable result value
  to an actor.
• Mapping the Use Case Diagram to XML XMI
  pattern
• The XMI pattern specifies an XML structure for
  exchanging models of object-oriented systems.
• The XMI pattern allows interoperability between
  CASE tools, meta data repositories and
  development tools, through meta data exchange
  within a XML-based file or data flow.

5
Non-Functional Requirements and the Semantics of
GRL

• GRL (Goal-oriented Requirement Language)
• is a language for supporting the goal-oriented
  modeling and reasoning of requirements
• supports the i framework, which offers modeling
  concepts such as goals, task, softgoal
  (representing NFRs) and resource.
• complements Scenario models
• is concerned with exposing "why" certain choices
  for behavior and/or structure were made or
  certain constraints where introduced.
• is not interested in the "operational" details of
  processes or system requirements (or component
  interactions).
• The OME tool (Organizational Modeling Enviroment)
• generates the XML code of the GRL diagram,
  according to the DTD that complies the GRLs BNF.

6
Mapping the XML Document with Use Cases and
SoftGoals

• We created a Document Type Definition (DTD) which
  defines different pieces of the modeled data and
  their relationships .

7
The Generator of XML Documents complying with
UseCase.dtd
The XSLT Reception/formatting diagram
8
Storing of the XML Document in Databases
Storing XML document
9
The NFR Management Application
The NFR Management tool diagram
10
Case StudyBank System of checking account
Use Case for Bank system of checking account
11
Case StudyBank System of checking account
GRL diagram for checking account
12
Case StudyBank System of checking account
XML Complying the UseCase DTD

• lt?xml version"1.0" encoding"UTF-16"?gt
• lt!DOCTYPE usecase-spec SYSTEM UseCase.dtd"gt
• ltusecase-specgt
• ...
• ltnfr nfr-id"Element_5 " nfr-name"Performance "
  description""/gt
• ltnfr nfr-id"Element_2 " nfr-nameConfidentialit
  y " description""/gt
• ...
• ltusecase usecase-id"S.10006" name"Authorize
  Access" description""gt
• ltassociation-nfr association-id"association_nfr
  _S.10006Element_2" usecase-id- ref"S.10006"
  nfr-id-ref"Element_2 " association- name"associ
  ation_nfr_Element_2" description"The
  contribution is some- positive "/gt
• ltassociation-nfr association-id"association_nfr
  _S.10006Element_5" usecase-id- ref"S.10006"
  nfr-id-ref"Element_5 " association- name"associ
  ation_nfr_Element_5" description"The
  contribution is some- negative "/gt
• lt/usecasegt
• ...
• lt/usecase-specgt

13
Conclusion

• The importance of XML tecnology in this project
  since it allows us for representing both UML and
  GRL notations in the same language, as well as
  integrating them in a unique document.
• Considering NFRs in the early stages of a system
  development will make the conceptual model more
  complete and with higher quality, according to
  manager and market expectations.
• From the case study we noted that information
  contained in the GRL diagram can be the base to
  evolve the information contained in the Use Cases
  diagram.
• Integrating non-functional requirements and Use
  Cases enables the requirement engineer to choose
  the best alternative to develop the software and
  to analyze more deeply those Use Cases that
  really represent the satisfaction of the
  organizational goals.

14
Future Work

• To improve the proposed application, future works
  would include
• Concluding the construction of the NFR management
  environment, since the prototype only covers the
  integrating models and some management functions
• Providing user-oriented and browser-based
  services, accessible by API.

15
References

• 1. GRL Ontology. http//www.cs.toronto.edu/km/GRL/
  . Access in February 2002.
• 2. MOF e UML, The Unified Modeling Language,
  version 1.4, The Object Management Group, May
  2001. http//www.omg.org/.
• 3. Rumbaught, J., Jacobson, I. and Booch, G. The
  Unified Modeling LanguageReference Manual.
  Addison Wesley, 1999.
• 4. XML-Extensible Markup Language.
  http//www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml-19980210 and
  http//www.xml.com/. Access in February 2002.
• 5. Use Case papers. http//www.pols.co.uk/usecasez
  one/use-case-papers.htm. Access in February
  2002.
• 6. XMI http//www.software.ibm.com/ad/features/xmi
  .html.
• 7. XSLT http//www.xml.com/pub/rg/XSLT_Tutorials.
• 8. i http//www.cs.toronto.edu/km/istar.
• 9. Santander, V., Castro, J. Deriving Use Cases
  from Organizational Modeling, to appear in
  RE02. IEEE Joint Int. Requirements Engineering
  Conference. University of Essen, 2002.
• 10. Castro, J., Kolp, M., Mylopoulos, J. A
  Requirements-Driven Development Methodology In
  CAISE01, The 13Th Conference on Advanced
  Information Systems Engineering, 2001,
  Interlaken, Switzerland.
• 11. Chung, L., Nixon, B. A., Yu, E. and
  Mylopoulos, J. Non-Functional Requirements in
  Software Engineering. Kluwer Publishing, 2000.

16
UseCase.dtd

• lt!ELEMENT usecase-spec (actor, nfr, usecase)gt
• lt!ELEMENT usecase (association-actor,
  association-nfr)gt
• lt!ATTLIST usecase usecase-id ID REQUIRED
• name CDATA IMPLIED
• description CDATA IMPLIED gt
• lt!ELEMENT association-actor EMPTYgt
• lt!ATTLIST association-actor association-id ID
  REQUIRED
• usecase-id-ref IDREF REQUIRED
• actor-id-ref IDREF REQUIRED
• association-name CDATA IMPLIED
• description CDATA IMPLIED gt
• lt!ELEMENT association-nfr EMPTYgt
• lt!ATTLIST association-nfr association-id ID
  REQUIRED
• usecase-id-ref IDREF REQUIRED
• nfr-id-ref IDREF REQUIRED
• association-name CDATA IMPLIED
• description CDATA IMPLIED gt
• lt!ELEMENT actor EMPTYgt
• lt!ATTLIST actor actor-id ID REQUIRED