Constraint-Preserving Architecture Transformations:A Graph Rewriting Appraoch

Architecture transformations are frequently performed during softwaredesign and maintenance. However this activity is not well supported at asufficiently abstract level. In this paper, the authors characterizearchitecture transformations using graph rewriting rules, wherearchitectures are represented in graph notations. Architectures areusually required to satisfy certain constraints during evolution.Therefore a way is presented to construct the sufficient and necessarycondition for a transformation to preserve a constraint. The conditioncan be verified before the application of the transformation. Validatedtransformations are guaranteed not to violate corresponding constraintswhenever applied.