A Software architecture documentation for the Motor Vehicle System (MOVIS)

Abstract

The motor vehicle information system (MOVIS)is the central information management system for all motor vehicles owned by private individuals and organizations. Lack of architectural documentation for the MOVIS makes it prone to all the shortcomings of undocumented software like the pain and cost of maintenance. For continuity purposes, the architecture of this system needed to be documented and this was achieved by employing reverse engineering techniques. Reverse engineering tools together with source code manipulation were used to extract an understanding of the system architecture. Different views including the functional, information, development and deployment views are used to represent the system architecture. Because business rules are dynamic, the developed software architecture documentation would become obsolete with time. An online application changes tracking system was therefore developed to manage the changes that will happen after the system is documented. This online application is automatically started by a timed windows service.The windows service and the online application were developed using C# and ASP.NET and deployed in Microsoft Internet Information Server(IIS). The application database run on Microsoft SQL server 2005. By comparing the developed software architectural document with changes that have happened after its development, a programmer will have a better picture of the current status of the system.