Software Architecture- Evolution and Evaluation

TL;DR: This paper brings out the history of software architecture with a new evolution tree, and presents the comparative chart that can be used as a reference guide to understand top level frameworks and to enable and promote the utilization of these frameworks in various environments.

Abstract: The growth of various software architectural frameworks and models provides a standard governing structure for different types of organizations. Selection of a suitable framework for a particular environment needs much more detailed information in various aspects and a reference guide of features should be provided. This paper brings out the history of software architecture with a new evolution tree. It also technically analyses well known frameworks used in industries and other governmental organizations and lists out the supportive tools for them. This paper presents the comparative chart that can be used as a reference guide to understand top level frameworks and to further research to enable and promote the utilization of these frameworks in various environments. The basic principles of 'software architecture' have been applied since the mid 1980's and it crossed various stages from algorithm's era by borrowing the concepts from others to get a shaped form. In 1928, An Algorithm was formulated to solve the problem by the finite sequence of instructions. Von Neumann developed 'Flow Chart' that has a visual representation of the instruction flow, to plan computer programs in 1947 by inheriting the idea from the flow process chart(1921) and multi flow chart(1944)which were used mostly in the area of electrical engineering. But, there is a gap to point out the flow of control. So, 'Control Flow Diagram' (CFD) was developed in the late 1950's to describe the control flow of a business process and program. This was not enough to view the complex systems. The high level view of the work and immediate access of particular points can't be represented using this diagram. So, to reveal the entire system by dividing into blocks, 'Block Diagram' was developed in late 1950's. A specific function for each block and the connection between blocks will be shown in a diagram. The introduction of abstraction concept became a booster in the field of software architecture. It made a revolution and tremendous growth to that area. By that way, data structures that have similar behaviour, data structures that have similar behaviour, certain data types and modules of one or more programming languages that have similar semantics are grouped in the late 1960's.This was happened by the introduction of Abstract data types. It again leads to 'Modular Programming' that introduces the concept of separate parts called modules in software in 1968. Separation of concerns with the logical boundaries between components is called as modules. In 1977, 'Three Schema Approach' that adopts layered architecture based on the modular programming was developed. It is used to build information systems using three different views in systems development. Here an application will be broken into tiers and developers have to modify a