Mashreq University

Faculty of Computer science and Information Technology

Software Engineering Department

Software Architecture and Design

Dr. Ammar Mohamed Abdo

disteducation.mashreq.edu.sd/
 Software Architecture and Design

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Introduction

Dr. Ammar Mohamed Abdo

disteducation.mashreq.edu.sd/
 Software Architecture and Design

The architecture of a system describes its major components, their relationships (structures), and how they interact with each
other. Software architecture and design is a process that includes several contributory factors such as Business strategy,
quality attributes, human dynamics, design, and IT environment.
We can segregate Software Architecture and Design into two distinct phases:

Software Architecture and Software Design. In Architecture, nonfunctional decisions are cast and separated by

the functional requirements. In Design, functional requirements are accomplished.

 Software Architecture

Architecture serves as a blueprint for a system. It provides an abstraction to manage the system complexity and establish a communication coordination

mechanism among components.

 It defines a structured solution to meet all the technical and operational requirements, while optimizing the common quality attributes like

performance and security.

 It involves a set of significant decisions about the organization related to software development and each of these decisions can have a

considerable impact on quality, maintainability, performance, and the overall success of the final product. These decisions comprise of:

• Selection of structural elements and their interfaces by which the system is composed.

• Behaviour as specified in collaborations among those elements.

• Composition of these structural and behavioural elements into large subsystem.

• Architectural decisions align with business objectives.

• Architectural styles that guide the organization.

 Software Design

Software design provides a design plan that describes the elements of a system, how they fit, and
work together to fulfill the requirement of the system. The objectives of having a design plan are as
follows:
 To negotiate system requirements, and to set expectations with customers, marketing and
management personnel.

 Act as a blueprint during the development process.

 Guide the implementation tasks, including detailed design, coding, integration, and testing.

It comes before the detailed design, coding, integration, and testing and after the domain analysis,
requirements analysis, and risk analysis.
 Goals of Architecture

The primary goal of the architecture is to identify requirements that affect the structure of the
application. A well-laid architecture reduces the business risks associated with building a technical
solution and builds a bridge between business and technical requirements. Some of the other goals are
as follows:

• Expose the structure of the system, but hide its implementation details.

• Realize all the use-cases and scenarios.

• Try to address the requirements of various stakeholders.

• Handle both functional and quality requirements.

• Reduce the goal of ownership and improve the organization’s market position.

• Improve quality and functionality offered by the system.

• Improve external confidence in either the organization or system.

 Limitations

Software architecture is still an emerging discipline within software engineering. It has the following
limitations:

• Lack of tools and standardized ways to represent architecture.

• Lack of analysis methods to predict whether architecture will result in an implementation that
meets the requirements.

• Lack of awareness of the importance of architectural design to software development.

• Lack of understanding of the role of software architect and poor communication among
stakeholders.

• Lack of understanding of the design process, design experience and evaluation of design
 Role of Software Architect:

A Software Architect provides a solution that the technical team can create and design

for the entire application. A software architect should have expertise in the following areas:
 Design Expertise
• Expert in software design, including diverse methods and approaches such as object-oriented
design, event-driven design, etc.

• Lead the development team and coordinate the development efforts for the integrity of the design.

• Should be able to review design proposals and tradeoffs among them.

 Domain Expertise
• Expert on the system being developed and plan for software evolution.

• Assist in the requirement investigation process assuring completeness and consistency.

• Coordinate the definition of domain model for the system being developed.
 Technology Expertise

• Expert on available technologies that helps in the implementation of the system.

• Coordinate the selection of programming language, framework, platforms, databases, etc.

 Methodological Expertise
• Expert on software development methodologies that may be adopted during SDLC (Software
Development Life Cycle).

• Choose the appropriate approaches for development that helps the entire team.
 Hidden Role of Software Architect

• Facilitates the technical work among team members and reinforcing the trust relationship in the

team.

• Information specialist who shares knowledge and has vast experience.

• Protect the team members from external forces that would distract them and bring less value to

the project.
 Deliverables of the Architect:

• A clear, complete, consistent, and achievable set of functional goals

• A functional description of the system, with at least two layers of decomposition

• A concept for the system

• A design in the form of the system, with at least two layers of decomposition

• A notion of the timing, operator attributes, and the implementation and operation plans

• A document or process which ensures functional decomposition is followed, and the form of

interfaces is controlled
 Quality Attributes

Quality is a measure of excellence or the state of being free from deficiencies or defects. Quality
attributes are system properties that are separate from the functionality of the system.
Implementing quality attributes makes it is easier to differentiate a good system from a bad one.
Attributes are overall factors that affect runtime behavior, system design, and user experience.
They can be classified as follows:

 Static Quality Attributes :

Reflect the structure of system and organization, directly related to architecture, design, source code.
They are invisible to end-user, but affect the development and maintenance cost, e.g.: modularity,
testability, maintainability, etc.
 Quality Attributes cont…

 Dynamic Quality Attributes :

Reflect the behavior of the system during its execution. They are directly related to system’s
architecture, design, source code and also the configuration, deployment parameters, environment, and
platform.

They are visible to the end-user and exist at runtime, e.g.: throughput, robustness, scalability, etc.
 Quality Scenarios

Quality scenarios specify how to prevent a fault from becoming a failure. They can be
divided into six parts based on their attribute specifications:
 Source An internal or external entity such as people, hardware, software, or
physical infrastructure that generates the stimulus.
 Stimulus A condition that needs to be considered when it arrives on a system.
 Environment The stimulus occurs within certain conditions.
 Quality Scenarios cont…

 Artifact A whole system or some part of it such as processors, communication

channel, persistent storage, processes etc.
 Response An activity undertaken after the arrival of stimulus such as detect
faults, recover from fault, disable event source etc.
 Response measure Should measure the occurred responses so that the
requirements can be tested.
 Common Quality Attributes

The following table lists the common quality attributes a software architecture
must have

.
Quality Attributes cont…
Quality Attributes cont…