QUANTIFYING NON FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS IN SERVICE ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

Non functional requirements are considered critical element for determining quality of a software system. Despite the fact, dealing of non functional requirements has always been remained in question. Importance of non functional requirements becomes higher in service oriented domain where differently developed services are integrated and run together as a single application. If quality requirements are not properly catered, system can fail at integration phase. Requirement engineering of service oriented applications need more focus as services are used across domains by large number of stakeholders and non functional requirements differ person to person. Major reason of non functional requirements ignorance is absence of quantification technique in service oriented development. This research is aimed at providing proposed framework for quantifying non functional requirements in service oriented development. Proposed framework consists of four models; quantification model, conflict detection model, requirement management model and evaluation model. Framework not only provides quantification scheme but also identifies conflicting and supporting requirements by using conflict detection model. Requirement management model helps in requirement change management. Evaluation model enables consumer to evaluate quality of service in use. Evaluation of research by domain experts shows its applicability upto 85 percent in real life projects. Innovation of this research is shifting quality evaluation towards consumer side which was previously producer centric. Idea is to bind evaluation model with Service Level Agreement (SLA). At one side, it aids consumer to evaluate quality of service when required and can provide feedback to producer. On the other side, it enables producer to manage quality requirements within budget as defined by SLA.