Software architects need to model their work so that their synthesized systems may be analyzed in terms of performance, and this paper explains how to do just that. The work is based on software known as the Palladio Component Model (PCM) and the paper adds insights on modeling connectors. I wish I had first read its second reference before I tackled the paper. You could also get excellent background information from the Web.

The connector abstractions in section 3, highlighted by figure 1, give the reader a terrific understanding of the nature of connectors and how they can be implemented. This is similar to Unix’s famed pipes and filter pattern, which readers will want to be familiar with to understand this paper.

A firm foundation in software architecture and models will also be important for reading this paper. It is not for the faint of heart. Professionals in software engineering will want to study it carefully to understand the interaction of components with their connectors. A connector in the authors’ model is “a consumer with regard to its predecessor and a producer with regard to its successor, while the pipes are the bounded buffers in between,” according to a description in section 2. With this information, an architect may reduce a design to a set of interconnected parts.

In section 5, the authors note that this work was driven by a need to establish “a design time performance redetection.” I wish the authors showed how to do such predictions, although perhaps they are leaving that for a future paper. I think there is also a need to integrate basic queueing theory into their model, particularly with respect to the multiple pipes connection components-to-components in figure 1.

The paper is a well written and highly technical, aimed at true software engineering professionals who are eager to do analysis as well as design. You will profit by reading and understanding it and the PCM.