Dr. Olaf Zimmermann is a Research Staff Member at IBM Research - Zurich. Olaf received his Ph. D. (Dr. rer. nat.) from Stuttgart University in 2009. Olaf is an Open Group Master Certified and IBM senior certified Executive IT Architect; he has 20 years of IT industry experience. His research interests include reusable architectural decision models and their role in architecture design processes and tools, SOA design, and cloud computing.

Previously, Olaf was a solution architect, helping IBM clients designing enterprise-scale SOA/Web services and Java Enterprise Edition (JEE) solutions on numerous professional services projects. He also educated practitioners around the world on emerging middleware technologies. In the beginning of his career, Olaf worked as a scientific consultant in the IBM European Networking Center (ENC) in Heidelberg, Germany, focusing on industry-specific middleware frameworks for systems and network management.

Olaf is a regular conference speaker and an author of the Springer text book „Perspectives on Web Services“. He contributed to several IBM Redbooks such as „Web Services Wizardry with WebSphere Studio Application Developer“. Olaf received a graduate “Diplom-Informatiker” degree in Computer Science from the Technical University in Braunschweig, Germany, in 1993.

An Architectural Decision Modeling Framework for Service-Oriented Architecture Design

In this thesis, we investigate whether reusable architectural decision models can support Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) design. In the current state of the art, architectural decisions are captured ad hoc and retrospectively on projects; this is a labor-intensive undertaking without immediate benefits. On the contrary, we investigate the role reusable architectural decision models can play during SOA design: We treat recurring architectural decisions as first-class method elements and propose an architectural decision modeling framework and a reusable architectural decision model for SOA which guide the architect through the SOA design. Our approach is tool supported.

Our framework is called SOA Decision Modeling (SOAD). SOAD provides a technique to systematically identify recurring decisions. Our reusable architectural decision model for SOA conforms to a metamodel supporting reuse and collaboration. The model organization follows Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) principles and separates long lasting platform-independent decisions from rapidly changing platform-specific ones. The alternatives in a conceptual model level reference SOA patterns. This simplifies the initial population and ongoing maintenance of the decision model. Decision dependency management allows knowledge engineers and software architects to check model consistency and prune irrelevant decisions. Moreover, a managed issue list guides through the decision making process. To update design artifacts according to decisions made, we inject decision outcome information into design model transformations. Finally, a Web-based collaboration system provides tool support for the framework steps and concepts.

The SOAD framework is not only applicable to enterprise application and SOA design, but also to other application genres and architectural styles. SOAD supports use cases such as education, knowledge exchange, design method, review technique, and governance instrument.