A.6. Target Technology Viewpoint

The TRRS technology viewpoint includes three phases of prototype planning (Figure A.4). These phased prototypes are selected to support incremental system evolution and scalability. The evolution from phase to phase is enabled by the choice of technologies and the provision of multitier interoperability boundaries in the implementation.

Phase 1 is a rapid prototype configured as a standalone Java application with a flat-file database. Phase 2 supports multiple clients on an intranet using RMI or IIOP technologies for distributed infrastructure [Malveau 97]. Phase 3 supports database scalability by replacing the flat file with a JDBC interface to a back-end database.

The technical architectures for Phase 4 and beyond resemble Phase 3. Beyond Phase 3, the addition of TRRS software functionality for database entry, database integrity, and Internet-capable security means significant development challenges. Other development challenges include the provision of tools for architecture planning and management that utilize the TRRS data. For example, notification to software developers about relevant TRRS product entries (using push-technology) introduces a dynamic aspect to software architecture.