Lecture 1 - Introduction to architecture by Michel Chaudron - Part 1

Summary

This lecture introduces software architecture, discussing its importance, fundamental concepts, and role in system design. It covers the challenges faced by software engineers, the evolution of software complexity, and the strategic planning needed for effective architecture. The lecture emphasizes the interplay between business, user requirements, and technology, highlighting architecture's role in aligning these forces and its impact on project costs and risks.

Takeaways

• 🏗️ Software architecture is the structure of a computing system that comprises software components, their externally visible properties, and the relationships among them. It is crucial for determining system qualities like performance, modifiability, and security.
• 🤔 The importance of software architecture lies in its role in reducing product costs, decreasing time to market, and managing the complexity of increasingly interconnected and globally competitive software systems.
• 📈 As software grows in size and complexity, architects must plan for evolution to keep the system manageable. This involves understanding the impact of design decisions on system components and their interactions.
• 👥 Software architecture serves multiple purposes, including answering why the system is needed, documenting important design decisions, and guiding the system's implementation.
• 🔍 Architecture documentation is essential for describing and communicating the system's important aspects to all stakeholders, facilitating feedback and steering the design in a value-adding direction.
• 🛠️ The architecture guides the implementation by providing guidelines for design and addressing common design problems, such as security, which can vary in perspective depending on the stakeholder's role.
• 🔄 An architecture should be designed to accommodate foreseeable changes and new features, aiding in reducing maintenance costs and enhancing the system's adaptability.
• 🌐 The global workflow of architecture design involves a backlog of issues to be tackled, driven by context requirements and evaluation results, emphasizing the iterative nature of the architecture development process.
• 🔍 Different perspectives on architecture exist, such as enterprise-level architecture focusing on business processes and systems coordination, and product family architecture emphasizing commonalities and variability management.
• 💡 A proper software architecture process involves negotiating and balancing functional and quality requirements with possible solutions, highlighting the intertwined nature of requirements engineering and software architecture.

Q & A

What is the primary focus of the advanced software architecture course?

The primary focus of the advanced software architecture course is to help learners understand the fundamentals of architecture and design, starting by describing what software architecture is, why it is important, and discussing the general issues that must be considered such as requirements, constraints, and the intersection between the user, business, and technology.

Why is software architecture important in the context of increasing software complexity and global competition?

Software architecture is important because it helps manage the complexity of software, which is rapidly increasing and becoming more interconnected. It also plays a crucial role in reducing the cost of products, decreasing time to market, and ensuring that software can evolve and adapt to changing requirements and technologies in a competitive global market.

What are the three main purposes of software architecture?

The three main purposes of software architecture are: 1) to answer questions related to why the system is needed, 2) to document the important design decisions, and 3) to guide how the system shall be built, providing guidelines for design and implementation.

How does software architecture support business objectives?

Software architecture supports business objectives by allowing stakeholders to see what the system will be like and how it will meet their expectations, showing which modules and technologies need to be implemented and integrated for a working system, and helping in achieving targeted quality of the system by defining common solutions to be used across the system.

What is the role of architecture in managing the complexity of a system?

Architecture helps in managing the complexity of a system by providing a common definition of the system to be built, guiding the implementation, and maintaining an overview of complex systems. It also aids in systematic analysis of 'what if' questions and identifying the consequences of changes or alternative design decisions.

What is the relationship between software architecture and the development of a product family?

In the context of product families, software architecture is crucial for exploiting commonalities between different products while managing variability. It helps in designing an architecture that supports the evolution and extension of different features across various product variants within the family.

How does the architecture process involve negotiation and balancing of requirements and solutions?

The architecture process involves an iterative cycle where initial functional and quality requirements lead to the development of an initial architecture. This architecture is then discussed with stakeholders, leading to further refinement of requirements and architecture until an agreement is reached, ensuring that the final design meets both functional and quality needs.

What are the different perspectives on what constitutes software architecture?

Different perspectives on software architecture include viewing it as the structure of a system comprising software components and their relationships, as the fundamental concepts and properties embodied in its elements and design principles, and as the set of design decisions that determine the quality properties of a system.

How does the architecture process handle the evolution of software over time?

The architecture process acknowledges that software is always changing and incorporates principles for evolving the architecture. It is not just a static picture but also defines how the architecture can evolve over time, ensuring that the system remains manageable and adaptable.

What is the significance of architecture in the early stages of a project's lifecycle?

Architecture is significant in the early stages of a project's lifecycle because the decisions made in these initial stages determine 90% of the cost and risk of the entire project. A solid architecture can reduce development costs in the long run and ensure that the system is robust and adaptable to future requirements.