Chapter 10

Architectural Design
- Introduction
- Data design
- Software architectural styles

(Source: Pressman, R. Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach. McGraw-Hill, 2005)

Introduction
 Definitions
• The software architecture of a program or computing system is the structure or
structures of the system which comprise
– The software components
– The externally visible properties of those components(internal properties are not
specified)
– The relationships among the components(simple as procedure call or complex as
database access)

• Software architectural design represents the structure of the data and program
components that are required to build a computer-based system

• An architectural design model is transferable

– It can be applied to the design of other systems
– It represents a set of abstractions that enable software engineers to describe
architecture in predictable ways
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 Architectural Design Process
• Basic Steps
– Creation of the data design
– Derivation of one or more representations of the architectural structure of the
system
– Analysis of alternative architectural styles to choose the one best suited to
customer requirements and quality attributes
– Elaboration of the architecture based on the selected architectural style.

• A database designer creates the data architecture for a system to represent the
data components.

• A system architect selects an appropriate architectural style derived during

system engineering and software requirements analysis

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 Emphasis on Software
Components
• A software architecture is not an operational s/w.

• A software architecture enables a software engineer to

– Analyze the effectiveness of the design in meeting its stated requirements
– Consider architectural alternatives at a stage when making design changes
is still relatively easy
– Reduce the risks associated with the construction of the software
• Focus is placed on the software component
– A program module
– An object-oriented class
– A database
– Middleware

Architecture and Design

• Design is an instance of an Architecture.
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 Importance of Software
Architecture
• Representations of software architecture are an enabler for
communication between all stakeholders interested in the development
of a computer-based system.
• The software architecture highlights early design decisions that will
have a profound impact on all software engineering work that follows
and, as important, on the ultimate success of the system as an
operational entity.
• The software architecture constitutes a relatively small, intellectually
graspable model of how the system is structured and how its
components work together

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 Architectural Descriptions

 Word Architecture means - different things to different people.

 Architectural Descriptions is actually a set of work products that reflect

different view of the system.
The IEEE Standard defines an architectural description
(AD) as a “a collection of products to document an
architecture.”
The description itself is represented using multiple views, where
each view is “a representation of a whole system from the
perspective of a related set of [stakeholder] concerns.”

Architectural Decisions
One view of the architecture.

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Example Software Architecture Diagrams

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 Architectural Genres

• Genre implies a specific category within the overall software domain.

• Within each category, you encounter a number of subcategories.

• For example, within the genre of buildings, you would encounter the
following general styles: houses, apartment buildings, office buildings, industrial
building, warehouses, and so on.
1. Artificial intelligence
2. Commercial and nonprofit
3. Communication
4. Content authoring
5. Devices
6. Financial
7. Games
8. Goverment
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9. Industrial

10. Legal

11.Medical

12. Military

13. Medical

14.Os

15.Platforms

16. Scientific

17.Tools

18.Transportation.

19.Utilities

20.Entertainment and sports 10

Software Architectural Styles
Common Architectural Styles
of American Homes

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Common Architectural Styles
of American Homes
A-Frame Four square Ranch

Bungalow Georgian Split level

Cape Cod Greek Revival Tidewater

Colonial Prairie Style Tudor

Federal Pueblo Victorian

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 Software Architectural Style
• The software that is built for computer-based systems exhibit one of
many architectural styles
• Each style describes a system category that encompasses:
(1) a set of components (e.g., a database, computational
modules) that perform a function required by a system,
(2) a set of connectors that enable “communication, coordination
and cooperation” among components,
(3) constraints that define how components can be integrated to
form the system, and
(4) semantic models that enable a designer to understand the
overall properties of a system by analyzing the known properties
of its constituent parts.

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(Source: Bass, Clements, and Kazman. Software Architecture in Practice. Addison-Wesley, 2003)
Pattern differs from architecture
1. The scope of a pattern is less broad, focusing on one aspect of
the architecture.
2. Pattern imposes a rule on architecture(eg: concurrency)
3. Pattern tend to address specific behavioral issues within the
context of architecture.(eg. How real-time application handle
synchronization or interrupt.)

• Data-centered architectures
• Data flow architectures
• Call and return architectures
• Object-oriented architectures
• Layered architectures

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Data-Centered Architecture

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Data Flow Architecture

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Call and Return
Architecture

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Layered Architecture

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 • Object-oriented architectures

• Components of a system encapsulate data and the operation that must be

applied to manipulate the data.

•Communication between components are accomplished via message

passing

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Architectural Patterns
• Concurrency—applications must handle multiple tasks in a manner
that simulates parallelism
– operating system process management pattern
– task scheduler pattern
• Persistence—Data persists if it survives past the execution of the
process that created it. Two patterns are common:
– a database management system pattern that applies the storage
and retrieval capability of a DBMS to the application architecture
– an application level persistence pattern that builds persistence
features into the application architecture
• Distribution— the manner in which systems or components within
systems communicate with one another in a distributed environment
– A broker acts as a ‘middle-man’ between the client component
and a server component.

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