Software Architecture
Altran Praxis pedigree
Altran Praxis has a history of producing software systems that offer:
- High function integration.
- Evolution and adaptation possibilities.
- Support for regional markets.
- Ultra High quality.
The range of systems delivered covers high-end automotive systems involving hundreds of functions and millions of lines of code, to mobile phone and end-to-end connected systems with strong resource constraints through to high-integrity professional systems for Air Traffic Management.
The successful, economic and repeated development of such systems is highly impacted by an ability to provide a common structure for development, test and integration across all entities involved. Praxis considers that this is the role of architecture and has made the mastery of this discipline a core competence that continues to be developed.
What is Praxis’ approach to architecture?
The Praxis approach to architecture is more global and generic than simply the specification of the components of a single system. To Praxis, the architecture is the underlying concepts and principles for the design of a family of systems that can support a variety of functions. More specifically, for Praxis an architecture consists of the following:
- A set of principles against which a system is constructed and measured.
- A documented set of common abstractions for use across all interfaces.
- A limited set of supported interface mediation technologies (APIs, query languages, messaging etc,) along with usage rules.
- A collection of preferred technologies along with guidelines for their use.
- A unique support for internal and external reuse of function.
- A clear partitioning into classes of components based on role within a system.
- An integration and test schema based on component class.
- Frameworks for integration, common services, test and debugging of components, layers and systems based on the architecture.
- A central and enforced configuration technology for all parameters affecting performance, internationalisation and version customisation.
- Cookbooks for all activities associated with the architecture such as development, test, installation or configuration.
Altran Praxis approach and underlying concepts
At a high level Praxis has established a number of concepts which are used to guide the development of architecture and associated systems:
- Non-functional requirements treated first in analysis and synthesis.
- Use of dynamic linking technologies as first choice where overall static verification is not essential.
- Configuration, not re-coding for all global system management activities.
- Active reduction of design assumptions at all points of the development cycle.
- Explicit layer-based service-oriented architecture for development, integration and test.
- Use of existing standards wherever possible.
Issues addressed
The application of these concepts allows Praxis to define architecture in order to address the most demanding issues for system development, such as:
- Diverse and integrated functionality.
- Multiple technologies and associated providers.
- Complex internationalisation requirements.
- Diverse quality requirements.
- High system and user-interface concurrency.
- High connectivity requirements.
- High risk of function evolution during and after development.
- Need to support diverse computing platforms and environments.
- Mixed system performance scales and expectations.
- Bill of material pressure.
Current architecture activities
Praxis customers are benefiting from the convergence of its technology and expertise streams. Notably the integration of
safety,
high-integrity software,
HMI and
connectivity offers a potential advance in the domain of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). Such systems aim to support car security by:
- Providing information and warnings to the driver.
- Assessing the driving situation.
- Actively modifying the vehicle dynamics (trajectory, speed and acceleration) in critical situations.
Providing systems that can deliver these functions in an economic and above all totally reliable manner is a major challenge for architecture.
Our deliverables
The solutions in the field of architecture proposed by Praxis cover the provision of the following:
- Technical elements such as frameworks and tools.
- Documentation and training.
- System analysis and architecture design consulting.
- Bespoke architecture design and delivery.
- System design and delivery to custom or standard architectures.
Case reference
Automotive architecture
Challenge
A Tier One supplier to the automotive industry needed to rework its product line in order to radically reduce the cost and quality issues of delivering to multiple Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), across multiple cars and regions. Many issues relating to multi-site development, function diversity and automotive range had to be overcome.
The development team at Praxis undertook to deliver both the overall architecture and the first system under the architecture. Praxis ran a major requirements analysis and prototyping exercise which lead to the construction of the architecture. This was refined during the development of several automotive systems targeting navigation, multimedia telematics and driver information.
Outcome
The resulting architecture supported the development of a number of systems across a number of OEMs and cars. In particular the adoption of this architecture approach was demonstrated to reduce the development time for one system to a third of that initially estimated. The systems developed under this architecture sold in millions and exhibited a remarkable level of quality with zero software related warranty returns.
The architecture delivered was certified by Carnegie-Mellon Software Engineering Institute.