Non-Functional Requirements

Notes taken from: Object Oriented Software Engineering text; Art of Software Architecture (Stephen Albin) Use Case Analysis (Bittner and Spence); Use Cases Requirements in Context (Kulak and Guiney) Some notes from Rational Software Corporation slides Other personal notes

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Use-Case Analysis Steps Heres where we are:

Supplement the Use-Case Descriptions For each use-case realization Find Classes from Use-Case Behavior Distribute Use-Case Behavior to Classes For each resulting analysis class Describe Responsibilities Describe Attributes and Associations

Non-Functional Requirements

We have a: good understanding of the nature of the analysis classes and their responsibilities collaborations required to support the functionality described in the Use Cases via analysis classes

Need to address the non-functional requirements

IBM-Rational calls these analysis mechanisms.
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Non-Functional Requirements

The purpose of identifying non-functional requirements is to get a handle on these absolutely necessary requirements that are normally not functional.
During Analysis, this information is speculative. Will be refined later. Philosophy: Capture now; Realize later (Essential points in design)
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Non-Functional Requirements OOSE Text p.115-

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Types of Requirements

Functional
Describe

requirements

what the system should do

Non-functional
Consists

requirements

of Constraints that must be adhered to during development (design and implementation) Operative word: Constraints.

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Functional requirements
What What What

inputs the system should accept outputs the system should produce

data the system should store that other systems might use computations the system should perform

What

The

timing and synchronization of the above

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Non-Functional requirements

Mostly not unique to a single use case. Generally thread themselves throughout some use cases

Transcend locality

Some of these conflict with each other Some support efficiency of code and inefficiency in maintenance Lets contrast functional and nonfunctional requirements
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Non-functional Requirements Verifiable; Measured

All
If

requirements must be verifiable

not verifiable then there is no indications that these requirements have been satisfied.

Some
Some

must also be measured.

requirements are measurable, such as response time; availability time, etc. Some may be directly measured; some measured via simulation.
We

parse the non-functional requirements into categories

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Categories of Non-Functional Requirements

1. Quality Non-Functional Requirements (1 of 2)

All constrain the design to meet desired quality levels of usability, efficiency, reliability, maintainability and reusability Examples: Response time particularly important for processes that process a lot of data or use networks a great deal. Requirements might stipulate < two second response.

Might use a Timing bar indicating progress

Response time may be considered a functional requirement for some real time systems.

Throughput for computationally-intensive applications or for heavy transaction-oriented systems, the number of transactions per minute or number of computations per minute can/must be measured. Resource usage Application cannot use > xxMB of memory Very practical in a large multiprogramming / multiprocessing 36 9 system.

Categories of Non-Functional Requirements 1. Quality Non-Functional Requirements (2 of 2)

Reliability typically Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) (number of failures per week; define failure.) Availability Measures the time application is up and the period of down time, when down.

Recovery from failure Mean Time To Repair: (MTTR) critical to some applications; not so for others; checkpoint restarts; auto-saves, etc. If you specify the detailed procedure to follow, then this is a functional requirement.
Allowances for Reusability may specify that a certain percentage of the system must be designed generically to support reusability

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Categories of Non-Functional Requirements 2. Environment and Technology Constraints

Platform

What hardware / software the software must be able to work on. Normally indicate least platform e.g. Windows XP, Vista; 120 MB free disk space.
Programming language; database system. All individuals are familiar with these languages / database nuances. May/may not reduce need to train people
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Technology to be used

Categories of Non-Functional Requirements 3. Project Plan and Development Methods

Development Process/Methodology

This may be specified and will greatly impace development.

SDLC; RUP; Agile Methods, Scrum; XP, FeatureDriven Development (FDD), etc. Particular approaches to testing (done by separate group; Where in supervisory chain? References to these must be included; not the details

Cost and Delivery Dates; Traceability

A Bigee!! Usually a very important constraint. Usually found in the Contract for the system or in a separate project 36 plan. 12

Random Thoughts - Non-functional Requirements

Not

always clear that a requirement is nonfunctional and functional. If requirement is a fundamental part of the applications functionality, then it should be stated as a functional requirement
Think performance of a real time / manufacturing app. Think reliability of a safety-critical application

If

requirement is a constraint on design or some kind of restriction on design, then the requirement is almost always non-functional. Certainly the presented list is not exhaustive!
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Quality Models Many and Varied (1 of 2)

Quality Models from a different source: from Art of Software Architecture (p.70-72) Note the different categories for Quality Modeling according to this source: Product Operation Quality: Accuracy, Reliability, Efficiency, Integrity, and Usability Product Revision Quality are: maintainability, flexibility, testability Product Transition Quality are: Interface facility, reusability, transferability
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More attributes(2 of 2)

According to Barry Boehm: Overall quality is a function of these metrics:

Validity, clarity, understandability, modifiability, modularity, generality, economy, resilience, documentation

Laurence Bests Application Architecture identifies:

Accuracy and comprehensiveness; simplicity of use, operational flexibility, ease of development, maintenance and extension, security and control, resource efficiency, recovery

And there are numerous other lists.. These are presented to show you that there are different takes on quality and what determines quality
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Looking down on these(1 of 2)

Functional models such as use cases, typically drive object-oriented projects (although they certainly dont have to) Attributes such as modifiability are not easily expressed in purely object-oriented terms and need supplemental text descriptions to represent the design.

Each attribute MUST be considered during design and usually requires the architect to make multiple passes as a design.

Class design: start by addressing functionality only

Second pass to incorporate modifiability constraints while making sure that the functionality is not compromised. Sometimes, multiple passes are needed to incorporate various requirements and to evaluate the design tradeoffs.

How can these methods be efficient and yet maintainable? Efficient and yet reusable? Reusable yet modifiable?
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Looking down on these(2 of 2)

Many competing non-functional requirements. Architect must find a design that realizes a balance among them. Example:

Performance design techniques, however, usually incorporate fewer levels of indirection and optimizations to data structures in order to improve operation execution times. Performance gains may bring decreased maintainability / reusability features. Cost is usually competing with everything else and it is common that usability is sacrificed first!

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Where are Non-Functional Requirements Captured / Modeled?

Use Case Modeling Bittner and Spence p. 43 In the RUP, we place the non-functional requirements in the Supplementary Specifications But this is usually considered a standard.. Consider:

(Bittner and Spence: different categories!!!)

Legal and Regulatory Requirements Application Development Standards

e.g.: The customer must be of legal age to purchase alcohol.

e.g.: The system must be developed in accordance with the Rational Unified Process e.g.: The system must be available at least 90% of the time. e.g.: The system must be written in Java 2.

Quality attributes of the system to be built must include usability, reliability, performance, supportability requirements

Constraints placed on the design and implementation of the system such as operating system, environments,

Others

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Supplementary Specifications

Very misleading to think supplementary specs are inferior or lesser than functional specs. Many projects have run amuck because they did not consider these requirements. May have formed a major part of the overall critical success criteria. Consider the following problems / results:

E.g. System must support 300-500 simultaneous users; On entry into user acceptance testing, system supported eight simultaneous users; Developers had concentrated on the user interface and completely ignored this supplementary spec item. Upon further review, it was noticed that the developer did not investigate any of the requirements beyond the scope of the most basic flow of events. Not surprisingly, the system was never deployed.
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Supplementary Specifications Complement to Use Cases

Note use cases can capture non-functional requirements especially those that apply within the context of a single use case.

Use Supplementary Specs to capture non-functional requirements that are global in nature or do not vary from one use case to the next.
Within the Use Case: Typically, if the amount of interaction in use cases is large, the majority of requirements will be captured here and there may be just a few, global, non-functional requirements. Within the Supplementary Specifications: Conversely, if the amount of interaction in the use case is small, then the majority of requirements may be captured as non-functional requirements and found in the Supplementary Specifications. Keep a balance between using the use cases and non-functional requirements. We need both if the overall requirements objectives are to be met.
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Non-Functional Requirements the Process

Use Cases Kulak and Guiney

Identify the non-functional requirements Validate with appropriate stakeholders Document the requirements Capture its name, its effect, both the system and business degradation that would result if the requirements are not satisfied Best time to capture them when exploring the functional requirements Document it right away from your sources of information (interviews, questionnaires, ) Ask users about response times, what bothers them now; what is fine. Be certain to differentiate between business-related concerns which can often be added to a use case description, with non-functional requirements.
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Non-Functional Requirements the Process

Rank the non-functional requirements. Very Important!

Sometimes accommodating non-functional requirement may cost more than implementing the use case.
There is no free lunch, and some things are not worth the cost to accommodate.

e.g. Infinite availability; levels of performance. Dont let [a users] initial assumptions drive you into an architectural nightmare.

Use a template to document the non-functional requirements, as found in our Use Case book, ~ p. 79.
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Use something like the table below. You may add column attributes as needed.
NonFunctional Category* Number Non Functional Requirement Name Description Applies to Use Case(s): Exceptions

You may wish to categorize these (or not). If not, omit column. 36 You may wish a priority column! 23 You may also wish to add columns.

Examples
NonFunctional Category* Number Non Functional Requirement Name Description Applies to Use Cases: Exceptions

Persistency

Student objects need to be persistent System Administrator actor needs to be authenticated The Profile Database must be available 95% of the time

Where Student Objects are Updated Those Use Cases that access the Profile Database All Use Cases that require authentication

None

Security

None

Availability

None

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Supplementary Specifications

Inserted table(s) into Supplementary Specifications. The Supplementary Specifications document constitutes an additional artifact that we will be using. Note also that in some cases, the non-functional requirements are called analysis mechanisms (RUP)

Have persistency mechanism; security mechanism, etc. Means that there will be some process to accommodate persistency, security, etc.

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Analysis Classes Use of tags { } Non-Functional Requirements Map UML

As analysis classes are identified, it is important to identify the
non-functional requirements that might apply to them Classes that must be persistent are mapped to the Persistency Mechanism and tagged as persistent. Persistency tag: {persistent} Classes that are maintained with the Legacy Course Catalog system are tagged to the Legacy Interface mechanism; Classes for which access must be controlled (like who can read and modify instances of the class) are mapped to a Security mechanism., etc. {security} or {secure mechanism} Distributed classes mapped to a Distribution mechanism, etc.) (Often control classes are distributed.) {distributed}
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Use-Case Analysis Steps

Supplement the Use-Case Descriptions For each use case realization For each Analysis Class describe

responsibilities, etc.

Know (now) about analysis classes

..

their responsibilities, the analysis mechanisms / non-functional requirements that these analysis classes need to implement (persistence, security, legacy, ) and the collaborations required to support the functionality described in the use cases.

Unify Analysis Classes: Now lets review everything to ensure it is complete and consistent before moving on.

Checkpoints

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Unify Analysis Classes

The purpose of Unify Analysis Classes activity is to ensure that each analysis class represents a single well-defined concept, with non-overlapping responsibilities.

<<boundary>>

Name of analysis class should capture role; (e.g. EnrollmentForm) Description of class should capture role played by class in the system. Merge classes that define similar behavior or represent the same thing. Merge entity classes that define the same attributes Aggregate behaviors of merged classes. If you do any of these things, make sure you update any supplemental use case descriptions where necessary.
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<<control>>

<<entity>>

<<entity>>

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Evaluate Your Results

Glossary

Analysis Classes
Supplementary Specification Are Are Are Are Are the Names appropriate? the Descriptions accurate? classes that should be merged actually merged? appropriate entity classes merged? aggregations captured? 36

Use-Case Model 29

Evaluating and Verifying

Now, verify analysis classes meet functional

requirements of the system. Trace down through the Use Case specifications for each Use Case. Are all responsibilities covered? Are domain / application objects captured? Properties? Verify the analysis classes and their relationships are consistent with collaborations that they may support.

If one class is sending messages to another, there is a collaboration needed. If one class defines an array of objects from another class, have we modeled this as an aggregation! etc.

Very important that you evaluate your results at the 36 conclusion of Use Case Analysis.

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Use-Case Analysis Steps

Supplement the Use-Case Descriptions For each use-case realization

Find Classes from Use-Case Behavior Distribute Use-Case Behavior to Classes Describe Responsibilities Describe Attributes and Associations Qualify Analysis Mechanisms

For each resulting analysis class

Unify Analysis Classes Checkpoints - Check the quality of the model against criteria that the Designer looks for

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Checkpoints: Analysis Classes

Are the classes reasonable? Does the name of each class clearly reflect the role it plays? Does the class represent a single welldefined abstraction? Are all attributes and responsibilities functionally coupled? (What does this mean to you?) Does the class offer the required behavior? Are all specific requirements on the class addressed?
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(continued)

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Checkpoints: Analysis Classes

Note: All checkpoints should be evaluated with regards to the use cases being developed for the current iteration.

The class should represent a single well-defined abstraction. If not, consider splitting it. The class should not define any attributes and responsibilities that are not functionally coupled to the other attributes or responsibilities defined by that class. The classes should offer the behavior the use-case realizations and other classes require. (These will be methods later) The class should address all specific requirements on the class from the requirement specification the Use Cases in our case. Remove any attributes and relationships if they are redundant or are not needed by the use-case realizations.
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Checkpoints: Use-Case Realizations

Have all the main and/or sub-flows been handled, including exceptional cases?\ Have all the required objects been found?

Have all behaviors been unambiguously distributed to the participating objects?

Have behaviors been distributed to the right objects? Where there are several interaction diagrams, are their relationships clear and consistent? (next lecture)
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Review: Use-Case Analysis

What is the purpose of Use-Case Analysis? What is an analysis class? Name and describe the three analysis stereotypes. What is a use-case realization? Describe some considerations when allocating responsibilities to analysis classes. Describe the role of non-functional requirements in complementing functional requirements. Describe the tie-in of non-functional requirements to use cases. 36 35