xBreeze/ADL: A language for software architecture specification and analysis

Architecture description languages play an important role in modelling software architectures. However, many architecture description languages (ADLs) are either unable to deal with the verification and dynamic changes directly or too formal to be understood and manipulated. This paper presents xBreeze/ADL, a novel extensible markup language (XML)-based verification and evolution supported architecture description language, which is specifically designed for modelling the software architecture of large, complex systems. Five principle design goals are 1) to separate template from instance to define a loose coupling structure, 2) to present virtual and concrete link to identify service execution flow, 3) to clearly represent component behaviour to specify architecture semantics, 4) to introduce multi-dimension restrictions to define the architecture constraints, and 5) to use the graph transformation theory to implement the architecture configuration management (i.e., reconfiguration and verification). Various advanced features of xBreeze/ADL are illustrated by using an example on online movie ticket booking system.