Requirements traceability in practice is usually supported in requirements management tools, such as DOORS [IBM, 2014a] and Rational Requi- sitePro [IBM, 2014b]. However, there are traceability-dedicated tools (or prototypes) which have been mostly developed in the context of a specific research or study either as a standalone traceability tool or as an extension to existing tools or framework.
[INCOSE, 2010] provides a list of the available requirements management tools which support traceability. DOORS is the most widely used tool in industry to manage requirements and record traces [Alexander et al., 2005]. Generally, these tools enable users to organize requirements and other arte- facts. Artefacts can be linked to each other and to external files and thereby make them traceable, for example using hypermedia technologies. Traceabil- ity links are then visualized in a traceability matrix, as cross-references in a table-view or in a model- or graph-based diagram. However, most of the tools do not support customizable set of link types according different usage scenarios of traceability.
Regarding MDE, traceability tools are mostly available as prototypes which have been developed as a native tool or by extending the original tools [Galvao and Goknil, 2007]. The only industrial application of trace- ability is the bi-directional synchronization of models and code in roundtrip- engineering UML tools [Winkler and Pilgrim, 2010].
There are several research prototypes developed based on the approach presented in the related research. Table 2.1 provides an overview of these tools, which have been introduced in Section 2.1.3 in the context of each study. The table specifies the related study, the main purpose of the tool (scope), and highlights main features of the approach or tool.
On the other hand, there are studies arguing that current industrial approaches do not typically address end-to-end traceability and, accord- ingly, introduce custom end-to-end traceability tool. [Asuncion et al., 2007] present a software traceability tool which is used to store and manage traces throughout the entire life of a development project, from the requirements
phase to the test phase. A main contribution of their approach is to com- bine end-to-end requirements traceability and process traceability. Similarly, [Kirova et al., 2008] developed an integrated traceability environment, called TraceabilityWeb, based on their experience of evaluating different traceabil- ity methodologies and tools. They have mainly focused on integration with other tools in their organization, and using this tool to support their pro- cesses.
Finally, there are also some tools which provide traceability regarding requirements of specific contexts or domains. For example, [Lee et al., 2003] present ECHO, a tool-based approach to requirements engineering and traceability in agile projects. Echo creates the traceability web be- tween customer needs and specified solutions by providing a means to capture conversations with customers, structuring them into requirements artefacts, and then including them in the information model (as traceable items). In SPL engineering, pure::variants [pure-systems GmbH, 2014] and GEARS [BigLever Software Inc, 2012] are the two leading tools which pro- vide extensions to allow integration with other commercial traceability tools. They allows developers to integrate the functionalities provided by require- ments and traceability management tools with the variant management ca- pabilities specifically provided in these tools for SPL engineering.
Choosing the right tool support for traceability is not an easy and straight- forward decision. This is because available tools are different in several ways and even focus on different aspects of traceability, such as the aspects of de- velopment process that they cover, the traceability approach, and type of artefacts. Therefore, a simple comparison between tools’ features would not come to a tool by itself. The result of comparison should be examined against the capability and services required within a specific context or project. For example, the decision depends on the requirements management system al- ready used in the organisation or project. The most appropriate tool is the one that meets stakeholders’ needs, yields the benefits that are anticipated at an acceptable cost. In this respect, [Gotel and M¨ader, 2012] indicate that acquiring tool support for traceability requires a systematic enquiry and accordingly present a seven-step guide for practitioners to conduct such enquiry.
Table 2.1: Research-based traceability tools
Tool Scope Features
TOOR
[Pinheiro and Goguen, 1996]
Trace Recovery
– Pattern matching
– Uses regular expressions to define patterns to be matched
Tool Scope Features PRO-ART
[Pohl, 1996a] Trace Capture – Rule-based
– Traceability relations are cre- ated as a result of creating, deleting or manipulating re- quirements ACTS [Asuncion and Taylor, 2012] Trace Capture – Rule-based
– Traceability relations are cre- ated as users carry out devel- opment activities
TraceM
[Sherba et al., 2003]
Trace Recovery
– Transforms implicit relation- ships into explicit relation- ships
traceMaintainer [M¨ader et al., 2008a]
Trace Capture
– UML-based software develop- ment
– Traceability links are cap- tured while development ac- tivities are applied
ArchTrace [Murta et al., 2006]
Trace Maintenance
– Policy-based approach
– Keeps the architecture and implementation synchronized DocTrace
[Robinsons, 2014] Trace Visualisation – Automatically creates re- quirements traceability matrix (RTM)
– Coverage of requirements in the implementation
Tool Scope Features VisMatrix [Duan and Cleland-Huang, 2006] Using Traces
(Visualisation & Re-
trieval) – A graphical representation ofRTMs – Shows candidate links and the
strength of them ChainGraph
[Heim et al., 2008] Trace Visualisation – Graph-based
– Visualizes shared metadata between requirements in a graph
Traceline
[Integrate, 2014] Trace Visualisation – Graph-based
– A DOORS extension to pro- vide visualization for require- ments traceability
TraceViz
[Marcus et al., 2005]
Trace Visualisation
– A map of coloured and la- belled boxes to show links from and to a single artefact – Tracing between source code
and external documentation Zelda
[Ratanotayanon et al., 2009]
Trace Visualisation
– Associating arbitrary lines in text-based files with a feature map GEF3D [Ratanotayanon et al., 2009] Trace Visualisation – 3D editor
– Visualises model transforma- tion chains
Tool Scope Features Poirot
[Lin et al., 2006] Trace Recovery – IR-based
– Uses a probabilistic network model to generate trace links from requirement manage- ment tools RETRO [Hayes et al., 2004] Trace Recovery – IR-based
– Uses the LSI method and implements analyst feedback into the tracing process LeanArt
[Grechanik et al., 2007]
Trace Recovery
– Machine learning (ML)-based – Identifies trace links between use-cases and Java source code
ECHO
[Lee et al., 2003] Trace Recovery – Requirements engineering and traceability in agile projects – Captures conversations with
customers TraceLab
[Center of Excel- lence for Software Traceability (Co- EST), 2014]
General
– A workbench for designing, constructing, and executing traceability experiments – Highly customized to support
rigorous Software Engineering experiments
Tool Scope Features REAMP
[Schmid et al., 2006]
Trace Capture
– Software Product Line (SPL) development
– An extension to DOORS for requirements modelling in SPL engineering