Visualizing Modules and Dependencies of OSGi-based Applications

Abstract

The architecture of software it not tangible; but in different situations it is preferable to have it tangible. For example, while reviewing it against the intended design, introducing the software to others, or starting to develop on a new part. Basic aspects of a software architecture are the modules the software is constructed of and the dependencies between them. To comprehend these aspects is important especially for software using a technology such as OSGi, which key concept is modularization. In this paper, we describe interactive visualization tools that we developed to comprehend OSGi-based applications with their modules and dependencies. We focus on concepts to treat large number of modules and dependencies: navigation, filtering, and selection. We applied our solution for OSGi-based applications with hundreds of modules containing multiple submodules each. With the resulting visualizations, we can explore the modularization of the software architecture.