An experience of applying architecture-based approach to build a component-based requirements management toolset

It has been advocated and shown that software architecture can be an effective tool to reduce development cost and increase the quality of the end product [1]. Rigorous efforts invested in architectural design and evaluation activities results in increased comprehension of the system, better communication among stakeholders, effective project management, controlled evolution, and rapid development [2, 3]. This paper presents our experience of applying an architecture-based approach to develop an integrated requirements management toolset, PARSNIP (PARsed Natural language Input Processor). We also report the integration issues peculiar to our project, our approach to address them and rational for our architectural and integration decisions.