Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Mind Your Outcomes: Quality-Centric Systems Development

Seyed Hossein HAERI
* ,
Peter Thompson
* ORCID logo ,
Neil Davies
ORCID logo ,
Peter Van Roy
,
Kevin Hammond
,
James Chapman
Version 1 : Received: 7 December 2021 / Approved: 8 December 2021 / Online: 8 December 2021 (14:25:02 CET)
Version 2 : Received: 16 December 2021 / Approved: 21 December 2021 / Online: 21 December 2021 (13:59:45 CET)
Version 3 : Received: 21 January 2022 / Approved: 24 January 2022 / Online: 24 January 2022 (11:43:32 CET)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Haeri, S.H.; Thompson, P.; Davies, N.; Van Roy, P.; Hammond, K.; Chapman, J. Mind Your Outcomes: The ΔQSD Paradigm for Quality-Centric Systems Development and Its Application to a Blockchain Case Study. Computers 2022, 11, 45. Haeri, S.H.; Thompson, P.; Davies, N.; Van Roy, P.; Hammond, K.; Chapman, J. Mind Your Outcomes: The ΔQSD Paradigm for Quality-Centric Systems Development and Its Application to a Blockchain Case Study. Computers 2022, 11, 45.

Abstract

This paper directly addresses a critical issue that affects the development of many complex distributed software systems: how to establish quickly, cheaply and reliably whether they will deliver their intended performance before expending significant time, effort and money on detailed design and implementation. We describe ΔQSD, a novel metrics-based and quality-centric paradigm that uses formalised outcome diagrams to explore the performance consequences of design decisions, as a performance blueprint of the system. The ΔQSD paradigm is both effective and generic: it allows values from various sources to be combined in a rigorous way, so that approximate results can be obtained quickly and subsequently refined. ΔQSD has been successfully used by Predictable Network Solutions for consultancy on large-scale applications in a number of industries, including telecommunications, avionics, and space and defence, resulting in cumulative savings of $Bs. The paper outlines the ΔQSD paradigm, describes its formal underpinnings, and illustrates its use via a topical real-world example taken from the blockchain/cryptocurrency domain, where application of this approach enabled an advanced distributed proof-of-stake system to meet challenging throughput targets.

Keywords

formal semantics; quality attenuation; distributed systems; system design; scalability; performance; feasibility; blockchain; ΔQ.

Subject

Computer Science and Mathematics, Computer Science

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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