A taxonomy for architectural stability

With the increase dependence on software, there is a pressing need for engineering long-lived stable software. As architectures have a profound effect on the life-span of the software and the provisioned quality of the service, a stable architecture is a significant asset of the software. Yet, there is lack of consensus on the concept of stability as an architectural quality attribute. This paper proposes a taxonomy for defining, characterising and analysing architectural stability. The aim is to provide a better understanding and characterisation of this strategic quality attribute within the domain of software architecture, and to explicate a set of general concepts across a wide range of architectures. Such framework would significantly ease understanding the concept in the shed of modern and complex software architectures, and, therefore, allow more systematic guidance in designing and operating architectures. We apply the taxonomy in analysing the behavioural stability of self-aware cloud architectures.