Reference Library Architectural Design
	This page provides access to a variety of downloadable papers that address architectural issues. The following topics are considered: Architectural Assessment Characteristics General Methods Architectural Assessment Architecture Assessment for Practical Management of System Architectures [PDF] Peter H.N. de With and Gert-Jan van Dijk This paper presents a practical method for the assessment of architectures of technical complex systems. The method is based on the IEEE-1471 standard for SW-intensive systems and has been extended with special concerns from system owners. A few tools have been developed such as a questionnaire to come to uniform judgment results in practice. The method has been applied successfully in various practical cases of which brief results are presented. Conducting a Software Architecture Assessment [PDF] Grady Booch This paper discusses software architecture assessments and its purpose: to assess the "health" of a project by viewing the architecture, organization and the process. This paper covers why an assessment should be done, the process of an assessment, and delivering an assessment. Empirical Experiences in Analyzing Software Architecture Sensitivity [PDF] *FEE* Chung-Horng Lung This paper introduces a methodology that was developed and tested to evaluate the sensitivity of software architecture with respect to changes in key customer values and future requirements at Nortel's SEAL. This approach contains a framework for modeling various types of information and also a ser of architectural views for re-engineering, analyzing, and comparing software architectures. Information Architecture Assessment and Analysis [PDF] XShapes This paper gives a brief description of each step of an information architecture assessment and analysis by XShapes. IT Architecture Capability Maturity Model [PDF] Department of Commerce IT This documents contains an introduction to the Department of Commerce's IT Architecture Capability Maturity Model (CMM). The Department of Commerce IT architecture maturity model checklist is also included. Software Architecture Assessment [PPT] Jan Bosch This PowerPoint presentation outlines the following topics: software architecture assessment (quality attributes, stakeholders, software product line), an 3+1 assessment techniques (scenarios, simulations, metrics/mathematical modeling). Steps in an Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method: Quality Attribute Models and Analysis [PDF] Mario R. Barbacci, S. Jeromy Carriere, Peter H. Feiler, Rick Kazman, Mark H. Klein, Howard F. Lipson, Thomas A. Longstaff and Charles B. Weinstock This report presents some steps in architecture tradeoff analysis method (ATAM). This report illustrates typical quality attribute models, analyses, and tradeoffs using a small real-time industrial application. Back to the top Characteristics A Brief Survey of Software Architecture [PDF] Rikard Land A software system's architecture can be described as the "blueprint" of a system at the highest level of abstraction, describing the main components and their most important interactions. This report discusses in more detail how architectures can be described and the uses of such descriptions. Much research so far has also been dedicated to methods and case studies, to make the research of practical interest. This report describes how the quality of the software can be ensured to a certain degree through informal approaches - not least because an architectural description provides a common understanding around which different stakeholders can meet and discuss a system. Architectural Descriptions as Models of Software Position Paper for the 2nd Australian Workshop on Software Architectures (ASAW '99) [PDF] Ey&Mac240;un Eli Jacobsen, Bent Bruun Kristensen and Palle Nowack In every software system, some architecture is present, and even though the architecture is not described explicitly in our current programming technologies, the consequences of the architecture are indeed present in terms of the properties and qualities of the software. In this paper one of the key ideas in the authors work with software architecture is presented, namely architecture as software models. Conceptual models of software are presented in section 2, architectural models are characterized in section 3 and the ideas are further elaborated in section 4. Documenting Architectures & Architectures Description Languages [PPT] Michel Chaudron This PowerPoint presentation outlines how to document and model software architectures. Topics include: general guidelines for documentation, survey and assessment of existing ADL's, and Rational/UML approach using views. Legacy Architecture Challenges - Getting Harder to Hide [HTM] William Ulrich This article discusses aging computer systems and problems caused by them. Three main factors are considered; management, integration and transformation of legacy applications and data architectures. Towards a Recommended Practice for Architectural Description [PDF] Walter J. Ellis, Richard F. Hilliard II, Peter T. Poon, David Rayford, Thomas F. Saunders, Basil Sherlund and Ronald L. Wade The Architecture Planning Group (APG) was chartered by IEEE's Software Engineering Standards Committee to set a direction for incorporating architectural thinking into IEEE standards. This paper presents a framework for architectural thinking and uses it to review existing architectural practices; summarize the work of the APG and its recommendations; and provide the rationale for those recommendations. Back to the top General Approaches to Software Architecture [PDF] Christoph Hofmann, Eckart Horn, Wolfgang Keller, Klaus Renzel and Monika Schmidt To guarantee the ability of understanding and maintaining complex systems, some questions concerning the structure of software systems are increasingly important to deal with. This paper gives an overview of several existing approaches in the field of software architecture, i.e. approaches that focus on the gross structure of software systems. The paper starts with a motivation for dealing with software architectures. This is followed by a brief discussion of some formal approaches by the research community concerning the basic structure of software systems (architectural styles) and the question of how to write them down (architecture description languages). Creating an Architectural Vision: Collecting Input [PDF] Ruth Malan and Dana Bredemeyer This article discusses an interview process called Desired State Interviews which is a mean of gathering information from key influencers in the organization. Topics include: who to interview, interview guidelines, tips, and data analysis. From Architecture to Design and Implementation [PDF] Author Unknown This slide presentation's topics include: from architecture to design, using UML to model architectures, standardization, overview of UML, extensibility of UML, integration strategies, ADLs and UML can complement each other, maintaining consistency across UML views, UML model connectors. Improving Quality Attributes of a Complex System Through Architectural Analysis - A Case Study [PDF] Rikard Land The Software Architecture Analysis Method (SAAM) is a method for analyzing architectural designs, providing support in the design process by comparing different architectures and drawing attention to how a system's quality attributes are affected by its architecture. SAAM was used to analyze the architecture of a nuclear simulation system, and the method was found to be of great help when selecting the architecture alternative to use, and to draw attention to the importance of software architecture in large. Modifiability through Architecture Analysis [PDF] Nico Lassing, PerOlof Bengtsson, Jan Bosch, Daan Rijsenbrij and Hans van Vliet A system's software architecture is generally regarded to have a large influence on the effort required to adapt a system. Therefore, analysis of the decisions made at the architectural level is important to achieve modifiability and reduce the costs of maintenance. The area addressing this is software architecture analysis of modifiability. A method for this type of analysis is developed and presented in this paper. Round-Trip Software Engineering Using UML: From Architecture to Design and Back [PDF] Nenad Medvidovic, Alexander Egyed and David S. Rosenblum A key promise of software architecture research is that better software systems can result from modeling their important aspects throughout development. Choosing which system aspects to model and how to evaluate them are two decisions that frame software architecture research. Part of the software architecture community, primarily from academia, has focused on analytic evaluation of architectural descriptions and another part of the community, primarily from industry, has chosen to model a wide range of issues that arise in software development, with a family of models that span and relate the issues. One problem that neither community has adequately addressed to date is round-trip software engineering: consistently refining a high-level model of a software system into a lower-level model (forward engineering) and abstracting a low level model into a higher-level one (reverse engineering). This paper investigates the possibility of using the Unified Modeling Language (UML), an object-oriented design language, to that end. Software Architecture: A Roadmap [PDF] David Garlan The changing face of technology raises a number of new challenges for software architecture. This paper examines some of the important trends of software architecture in research and practice, and speculates on the important emerging trends, challenges, and aspirations. The Role of the Architect [PDF] Dana Bredemeyer and Ruth Malan This paper describes what the role of an architect involves and the architects domain of competency which includes: technology, business strategy, organizational politics, consulting, and leadership. Back to the top Methods A Lightweight Architecture Recovery Process [PDF] Davor Svetinovic and Michael Godfrey This paper presents an overview of a lightweight approach for software architecture recovery. The main advantages of the process are the lightweight recovery of architectural semantics, and the compatibility with the highly iterative adaptive development processes that involve extensive architectural refactorings. Architecture = Abstractions Over Software [PDF] Ey&un Eli Jacobsen, Bent Bruun Kristensen and Palle Nowack Design of software architecture is seen as abstraction over the software domain, and describing architecture is considered to be a modeling process. A general view of a modeling process is presented and illustrated in the context of application domain modeling and of software domain modeling. The implications of this perspective are investigated in order to capture objectives and concrete forms of architectural descriptions. The consequences of this perspective on architecture are characterized. Architecture Reverse Engineering [PDF] Elisabeth Hendrickson The objective of this paper is to create a map of the architecture to guide a testing effort. A Software Architecture Reconstruction Method [PDF] George Yanbing Guo, Joanne M. Atlee and Rick Kazman Changes to a software system during implementation and maintenance can cause the architecture of a system to deviate from its documented architecture. If design documents are to be useful, maintenance programmers must be able to easily evaluate how closely the documents conform to the code they are meant to describe. This paper presents a semi-automatic method, called ARM (Architecture Reconstruction Method) that guides a user in the reconstruction of software architectures based on the recognition of patterns. Once the system's actual architecture has been reconstructed, the conformance of the software to the documented design patterns can be analyzed. Current Issues and Future Trends [PDF] Author Unknown This is a slide presentation on current issues and future trends of software architectures. Topics include: architectural interchange, architectural toolkit, architectural refinement, architectural view integration, and bringing architectures to the masses. Not Just for Techno - Geeks: The Managerial and Sociological Benefits of Multi-Tier Application Architectures [PDF] Luke Hohmann This article's purpose is to describe the sociological and managerial benefits of multi-tiered application architects which are often overlooked. Topics include: background and assumptions, benefits, mythical benefits, and getting there from here. Object Frameworks - An Empirical Study of Software Architecture Issues [PDF] Sita Ramakrishnan This paper focuses on software architecture issues that must be taken into account in developing object-oriented frameworks. Scenario - Based Analysis of Software Architecture [PDF] Rick Kazman, Gregory Abowd, Len Bass and Paul Clements Software architecture is one of the most important tools for designing and understanding a system, whether that system is in preliminary design, active deployment, or maintenance. Scenarios are important tools for exercising an architecture in order to gain information about a system's fitness with respect to a set of desired quality attributes. This paper presents an experiential case study illustrating the methodological use of scenarios to gain architecture-level understanding and predictive insight into large, real-world systems in various domains. Software Architecture Recovery and Modelling [PDF] Arie van Deursen This paper covers current trends and issues in software architecture recovery. It consists of a summary of the presentations and discussions of the Software Architecture Recovery and Modelling discussion forum held during WCRE 2001, the Working Conference on Reverse Engineering, Stuttgart, Germany, October 2, 2001. Back to the top