A hierarchical model for traceability between requirements and architecture

This paper presents a formal traceability model that describes the linkage between requirements and architecture. This model creates a hierarchical structure of describing how the architecture is decomposed recursively level by level thereby making the trace creation scalable. The proposed traceability model enables the architect to establish and understand the traces over different decomposition levels in a consistent manner. Benefits of the proposed model are demonstrated with a nontrivial case study.