Week 6:

Architectural Design
Nguyễn Thị Minh Tuyền

Adapted from slides of Ian Sommerville

 Architectural Design
1. What is it?
2. Who does it?
3. Why is it important?
4. What are the steps?
5. What is the work product?
6. How do I ensure that I’ve done it right?
 Topics covered
1. Architectural design decisions
2. Architectural views
3. Architectural patterns
4. Application architectures

3
 Software architecture
£ The design process for identifying the sub-systems
making up a system and the framework for sub-
system control and communication is architectural
design.
£ The output of this design process is a description
of the software architecture.

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 Architectural design
£ Is an early stage of the system design process.
£ Represents the critical link between specification
and design processes.
£ Often carried out in parallel with some specification
activities.
£ Involves identifying major system components and
their communications.

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Architecture of a packing robot control
system
Vision
system

Object Arm Gripper

identification controller controller
system

Packaging
selection
system

Packing Conveyor
system controller
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 Architectural abstraction
£ Architecture in the small is concerned with the
architecture of individual programs.
p At this level, we are concerned with the way that an
individual program is decomposed into components.
£ Architecture in the large is concerned with the
architecture of complex enterprise systems that
include other systems, programs, and program
components.
p These enterprise systems are distributed over different
computers, which may be owned and managed by
different companies.
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 Advantages of explicit architecture
£ Stakeholder communication
p Architecture may be used as a focus of discussion by
system stakeholders.
£ System analysis
p Means that analysis of whether the system can meet its
non-functional requirements is possible.
£ Large-scale reuse
p The architecture may be reusable across a range of
systems.

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 Architectural representations
£ Simple, informal block diagrams showing entities
and relationships are the most frequently used
method for documenting software architectures.
£ But these have been criticized because they
p lack semantics,
p do not show the types of relationships between entities
nor the visible properties of entities in the architecture.

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 Box and line diagrams
£ Very abstract
p they do not show the nature of component relationships
nor the externally visible properties of the sub-systems.
£ However, useful for communication with
stakeholders and for project planning.

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 Use of architectural models

£ Facilitating discussion about the system design

p A high-level architectural view of a system is useful for
communication with system stakeholders and project planning
because it is not cluttered with detail.
p Stakeholders can relate to it and understand an abstract view of
the system. They can then discuss the system as a whole
without being confused by detail.
£ Documenting an architecture that has been designed
p The aim here is to produce a complete system model that
shows the different components in a system, their interfaces
and their connections.

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 Topics covered
1. Architectural design decisions
2. Architectural views
3. Architectural patterns
4. Application architectures

12
 Architectural design decisions
£ Architectural design is a creative process
p So the process differs depending on the type of system
being developed, the background and experience of the
system architect, and the specific requirements.
£ A number of common decisions span all design
processes and these decisions affect the non-
functional characteristics of the system.

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 Architectural design decisions
1. Is there a generic application architecture that can act as a
template for the system that is being designed?
2. How will the system be distributed across hardware cores or
processors?
3. What Architectural patterns or styles might be used?
4. What will be the fundamental approach used to structure the
system?
5. How will the structural components in the system be
decomposed into sub-components?
6. What strategy will be used to control the operation of the
components in the system?
7. What architectural organization is best for delivering the non-
functional requirements of the system?
8. How should the architecture of the system be documented?
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 Architecture reuse
£ Systems in the same domain often have similar
architectures that reflect domain concepts.
p Application product lines are built around a core
architecture with variants that satisfy particular customer
requirements.
£ The architecture of a system may be designed
around one of more architectural patterns or
‘styles’.
p An architectural pattern is a description of a system
organization.
p These capture the essence of an architecture that has
been used in different software systems.
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Architecture and system characteristics
£ Performance
p Localize critical operations and minimize communications.
£ Security
p Use a layered architecture with critical assets in the inner layers.
£ Safety
p Localize safety-critical features in a small number of sub-systems.
£ Availability
p Include redundant components and mechanisms for fault tolerance.
£ Maintainability
p Use fine-grain, replaceable components.

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 Topics covered
1. Architectural design decisions
2. Architectural views
3. Architectural patterns
4. Application architectures

17
 Architectural views

£ What views or perspectives are useful when designing

and documenting a system’s architecture?
£ What notations should be used for describing
architectural models?
£ Each architectural model only shows one view or
perspective of the system.
p It might show how a system is decomposed into modules, how
the run-time processes interact or the different ways in which
system components are distributed across a network.
p For both design and documentation, you usually need to present
multiple views of the software architecture.

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Architectural model 4 + 1

use case
 Topics covered
1. Architectural design decisions
2. Architectural views
3. Architectural patterns
4. Application architectures

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 Architectural patterns
£ Patterns are a means of representing, sharing and
reusing knowledge.
£ An architectural pattern is a stylized description of
good design practice, which has been tried and
tested in different environments.
£ Patterns should include information about when
they are and when they are not useful, and the
pattern’s strengths and weaknesses.
£ Patterns may be represented using tabular and
graphical descriptions.
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 Examples of patterns
£ Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern
£ Layered architecture pattern
£ Repository pattern
£ Client–server pattern
£ Pipe and filter pattern

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 Model-View-Controller (MVC)
pattern
£ Description
p Separates presentation and interaction from the system data.
p Is structured into three logical components that interact with each
other.
¡ The Model component: manages the system data and associated
operations on that data.
¡ The View component: defines and manages how the data is presented
to the user.
¡ The Controller component: manages user interaction (e.g., key
presses, mouse clicks, etc.) and passes these interactions to the View
and the Model.
£ Is used when
p There are multiple ways to view and interact with data.
p The future requirements for interaction and presentation of data are
unknown.
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 Model-View-Controller (MVC)
pattern
£ Advantages
p Allows the data to change independently of its representation and
vice versa.
p Supports presentation of the same data in different ways with
changes made in one representation shown in all of them.
£ Disadvantages
p Can involve additional code and code complexity when the data
model and interactions are simple.

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 Organization of the MVC

Controller View View

selection
Maps user actions Renders model
to model updates Requests model updates
Selects view Sends user events to
User events controller

Change
notification
State State query
change
Model

Encapsulates application
state
Notifies view of state
changes
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Web application architecture using the
MVC pattern
Browser

Controller View
Form to
display
HTTP request processing Dynamic page
Application-specific logic generation
Data validation Forms management
User events

Change
notification
Update Refresh request
request
Model

Business logic
Database
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 Layered architecture
£ Used to model the interfacing of sub-systems.
£ Organises the system into a set of layers (or
abstract machines) each of which provide a set of
services.
£ Supports the incremental development of sub-
systems in different layers. When a layer interface
changes, only the adjacent layer is affected.

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 Layered architecture pattern
£ Description
p Organizes the system into layers with related functionality
associated with each layer.
p A layer provides services to the layer above it so the lowest-level
layers represent core services that are likely to be used throughout
the system.
£ Used when
p Building new facilities on top of existing systems;
p The development is spread across several teams with each team
responsibility for a layer of functionality;
p There is a requirement for multi-level security.

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 Layered architecture pattern
£ Advantages
p Allows replacement of entire layers so long as the interface is
maintained.
p Redundant facilities (e.g., authentication) can be provided in each
layer to increase the dependability of the system.
£ Disadvantages
p In practice, providing a clean separation between layers is often
difficult and a high-level layer may have to interact directly with
lower-level layers rather than through the layer immediately below
it.
p Performance can be a problem because of multiple levels of
interpretation of a service request as it is processed at each layer.
A generic layered architecture

User interface

User interface management

Authentication and authorization

Core business logic/application functionality

System utilities

System support (OS, database etc.)

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Architecture of the LIBSYS system

Web browser interface

LIBSYS Forms and Print

login query manager manager

Distributed Document Rights

Accounting
search retrieval manager

Library index

DB1 DB2 DB3 DB4 DBn

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Architecture of the iLearn system
 Repository architecture
£ Sub-systems must exchange data. This may be
done in two ways:
p Shared data is held in a central database or repository
and may be accessed by all sub-systems;
p Each sub-system maintains its own database and
passes data explicitly to other sub-systems.
£ When large amounts of data are to be shared, the
repository model of sharing is most commonly
used a this is an efficient data sharing mechanism.

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 Repository pattern
£ Description
p All data in a system is managed in a central repository that is
accessible to all system components.
p Components do not interact directly, only through the repository.
£ Used when
p You have a system in which large volumes of information are
generated that has to be stored for a long time.
p You may also use it in data-driven systems where the inclusion of
data in the repository triggers an action or tool.

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 Repository pattern
£ Advantages
p Components can be independent—they do not need to know of the
existence of other components.
p Changes made by one component can be propagated to all
components.
p All data can be managed consistently (e.g., backups done at the
same time) as it is all in one place.
£ Disadvantages
p The repository is a single point of failure so problems in the
repository affect the whole system.
p May be inefficiencies in organizing all communication through the
repository.
p Distributing the repository across several computers may be
difficult.
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 A repository architecture for an IDE

UML Code
editors generators

Java
editor
Design Project
translator repository
Python
editor

Design Report
analyzer generator

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 Client-server architecture
£ Distributed system model which shows how data
and processing is distributed across a range of
components.
p Can be implemented on a single computer.
£ Set of stand-alone servers which provide specific
services.
£ Set of clients which call on these services.
£ Network which allows clients to access servers.

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 Client–server pattern
£ Description
p In a client–server architecture, the functionality of the system is
organized into services, with each service delivered from a separate
server.
p Clients are users of these services and access servers to make use
of them.
£ Used when
p Data in a shared database has to be accessed from a range of
locations.
p Load on a system is variable.

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 Client–server pattern
£ Advantages
p Servers can be distributed across a network.
p General functionality can be available to all clients and does not
need to be implemented by all services.
£ Disadvantages
p Each service is a single point of failure so susceptible to denial of
service attacks or server failure.
p Performance may be unpredictable because it depends on the
network as well as the system.
p May be management problems if servers are owned by different
organizations.

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A client–server architecture for a film
library
Client 1 Client 2 Client 3 Client 4

Internet

Catalog Video Picture Web

server server server server

Library Film store Photo store Film and

catalogue photo info.

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 Pipe and filter architecture
£ Functional transformations process their inputs to
produce outputs.
£ May be referred to as a pipe and filter model.
£ Variants of this pattern are very common. When
transformations are sequential, this is a batch
sequential model which is extensively used in data
processing systems.
£ Not really suitable for interactive systems.

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 Pipe and filter pattern
£ Description
p The processing of the data in a system is organized so that each
processing component (filter) is discrete and carries out one type of
data transformation.
p The data flows (as in a pipe) from one component to another for
processing.
£ Used when
p Commonly used in data processing applications (both batch- and
transaction-based) where inputs are processed in separate stages
to generate related outputs.

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 Pipe and filter pattern
£ Advantages
p Easy to understand and supports transformation reuse.
p Workflow style matches the structure of many business processes.
Evolution by adding transformations is straightforward.
p Can be implemented as either a sequential or concurrent system.
£ Disadvantages
p The format for data transfer has to be agreed upon between
communicating transformations.
p Each transformation must parse its input and unparse its output to
the agreed form. This increases system overhead and may mean
that it is impossible to reuse functional transformations that use
incompatible data structures.

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 Example of the pipe and filter
architecture

Issue
Receipts
receipts

Read issued Identify

invoices payments

Find Issue
payments payment Reminders
due reminder
Invoices Payments

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 Topics covered
£ Architectural design decisions
£ Architectural views
£ Architectural patterns
£ Application architectures

45
 Application architectures
£ Application systems are designed to meet an
organizational need.
£ As businesses have much in common
p their application systems also tend to have a common
architecture that reflects the application requirements.
£ A generic application architecture is an
architecture for a type of software system that may
be configured and adapted to create a system that
meets specific requirements.

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 Use of application architectures
£ As a starting point for architectural design.
£ As a design checklist.
£ As a way of organizing the work of the
development team.
£ As a means of assessing components for reuse.
£ As a vocabulary for talking about application types.

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 Examples of application types
£ Data processing applications
p Data driven applications that process data in batches without
explicit user intervention during the processing.
£ Transaction processing applications
p Data-centered applications that process user requests and
update information in a system database.
£ Event processing systems
p Applications where system actions depend on interpreting
events from the system's environment.
£ Language processing systems
p Applications where the users' intentions are specified in a
formal language that is processed and interpreted by the
system.

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 Application type examples
£ Focus here is on transaction processing and
language processing systems.
£ Transaction processing systems
p E-commerce systems;
p Reservation systems.
£ Language processing systems
p Compilers;
p Command interpreters.

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 Transaction processing systems

£ Process user requests for information from a

database or requests to update the database.
£ From a user perspective, a transaction is:
p Any coherent sequence of operations that satisfies
a goal;
p For example - find the times of flights from London
to Paris.
£ Users make asynchronous requests for service
which are then processed by a transaction
manager.

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 Structure of transaction processing
applications

I/O Application Transaction

processing logic manager Database

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Software architecture of an ATM system

Input Process Output

Get customer
Print details
account id
Query account

Validate card Return card

Update account

Select service Dispense cash

ATM Database ATM

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 Information systems architecture
£ Information systems have a generic architecture
that can be organized as a layered architecture.
£ These are transaction-based systems as
interaction with these systems generally involves
database transactions.
£ Layers include:
p The user interface
p User communications
p Information retrieval
p System database

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Layered information system architecture

User interface

User communications Authentication and

authorization

Information retrieval and modification

Transaction management
Database

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 Architecture of the Mentcare

Web browser

Form and menu Data

Login Role checking
manager validation

Security Patient info. Data import Report

management manager and export generation

Transaction management
Patient database

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 Web-based information systems
£ Information and resource management systems are
now usually web-based systems
p user interfaces are implemented using a web browser.
£ Example:
p E-commerce systems are Internet-based resource
management systems that accept electronic orders for goods
or services and then arrange delivery of these goods or
services to the customer.
p In an e-commerce system, the application-specific layer
includes additional functionality supporting a ‘shopping cart’ in
which users can place a number of items in separate
transactions, then pay for them all together in a single
transaction.
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 Server implementation
£ These systems are often implemented as multi-tier
client server/architectures
p The web server is responsible for all user
communications, with the user interface implemented
using a web browser;
p The application server is responsible for implementing
application-specific logic as well as information storage
and retrieval requests;
p The database server moves information to and from the
database and handles transaction management.

57
 Language processing systems
£ Accept a natural or artificial language as input and
generate some other representation of that
language.
£ May include an interpreter to act on the
instructions in the language that is being
processed.

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Architecture of a language processing
system
Translator
Source
language Check syntax
instructions Check semantics
Generate

Abstract m/c
instructions

Interpreter

Data Fetch Results

Execute

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 Compiler components

£ A lexical analyzer
p Takes input language tokens and converts them to
an internal form.
£ A symbol table
p Holds information about the names of entities
(variables, class names, object names, etc.) used in
the text that is being translated.
£ A syntax analyzer
p Checks the syntax of the language being translated.
£ A syntax tree
p Is an internal structure representing the program
being compiled. 60
 Compiler components
£ A semantic analyzer
p Uses information from the syntax tree and the symbol
table to check the semantic correctness of the input
language text.
£ A code generator
p ‘Walks’ the syntax tree and generates abstract machine
code.

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 A pipe and filter compiler
architecture

Symbol table
Syntax tree

Lexical Syntactic Semantic Code

analysis analysis analysis generation

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 A repository architecture for a
language processing system

Lexical Syntax Semantic

analyzer analyzer analyzer

Pretty- Abstract Grammar

Optimizer
printer syntax tree definition

Symbol Output Code

Editor
table definition generator

Repository

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Questions?

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