Software Architecture Fundamentals
Software architecture is the high-impact structure of a software system: its major parts, their responsibilities, and how they cooperate to meet business and operational needs.
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Intro
Software Architecture Fundamentals
Software architecture is the set of consequential decisions that shape a system's structure, behavior, and ability to change. It is not a product diagram or a list of frameworks. It is the reason a system has particular parts, boundaries, and relationships.
Start with the outcome the system must deliver. Then identify the constraints, the people affected by the system, and the qualities that matter. A payment system may need recoverable processing, an audit trail, and predictable latency. A reporting system may favor inexpensive batch work. The same technology can support both systems, but the architecture need not be the same.
Architecture is a working model
An architecture description makes decisions inspectable. ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 organizes this work around stakeholders, their concerns, viewpoints, and views. A view answers a question for an audience. A context view can show external systems and users. A runtime view can show calls, queues, and failure paths. A deployment view can show what runs, where it runs, and what changes together.
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Sources
- https://www.sei.cmu.edu/software-architecture/
Supports
- Software architecture as consequential structure and relationships
- Architecture evaluation, documentation, and conformance analysis
- Quality attributes and continuous architectural evolution
- https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/an-introduction-to-software-architecture/
Supports
- Architectural representations for understanding complex systems
- System organization and architectural styles
- https://www.iso-architecture.org/ieee-1471/cm/
Supports
- Stakeholders, concerns, viewpoints, and views
- Architecture descriptions organized around stakeholder concerns
- https://c4model.com/diagrams
Supports
- System context, container, component, and code diagrams
- Audience-focused architectural diagram selection
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/guide/architecture-styles/
Supports
- Architecture styles as constraints with benefits and challenges
- Layered, queue and worker, independent service, and event-driven styles
- Trade-offs involving messaging, latency, data consistency, and operations