Chapter 6 – Architectural Design

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Topics covered

 Architectural design decisions

 Architectural patterns
 Application architectures

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Architectural Design

 Architectural design is concerned with understanding

how a software system should be organized and
designing the overall structure of that system.

 Architectural design is the critical link between design

and requirements engineering, as it identifies the main
structural components in a system and the relationships
between them.

 The output of the architectural design process is an

architectural model that describes how the system is
organized as a set of communicating components.
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The software architecture of an ATM system

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Architectural Abstraction

 Architecture in the small is concerned with the

architecture of individual programs. 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.
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
 Architecture may be used as a focus of discussion by system
stakeholders.

 System analysis
 Means that analysis of whether the system can meet its non-
functional requirements is possible.

 Large-scale reuse
 The architecture may be reusable across a range of systems
 Product-line architectures may be developed.

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Architecture and System Characteristics

 Performance
 Localise critical operations and minimise communications. Use
large rather than fine-grain components.
 Security
 Use a layered architecture with critical assets in the inner layers.
 Safety
 Localise safety-critical features in a small number of sub-
systems.
 Availability
 Include redundant components and mechanisms for fault
tolerance.
 Maintainability
 Use fine-grain, replaceable components.
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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 the are not useful.
 Patterns may be represented using tabular and graphical
descriptions.

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1- The Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern

Name MVC (Model-View-Controller)

Description Separates presentation and interaction from the system data. The system 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. See Figure 6.3.
Example Figure 6.4 shows the architecture of a web-based application system
organized using the MVC pattern.
When used Used when there are multiple ways to view and interact with data. Also used
when the future requirements for interaction and presentation of data are
unknown.
Advantages Allows the data to change independently of its representation and vice versa.
Supports presentation of the same data in different ways with changes made
in one representation shown in all of them.
Disadvantages Can involve additional code and code complexity when the data model and
interactions are simple.

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The organization of the Model-View-Controller

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Web application architecture using the MVC
pattern

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2- 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.
 However, often artificial to structure systems in this way.

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The Layered architecture pattern

Name Layered architecture

Description Organizes the system into layers with related functionality

associated with each layer. 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. See Figure 6.6.
Example A layered model of a system for sharing copyright documents
held in different libraries, as shown in Figure 6.7.
When used Used when building new facilities on top of existing systems;
when the development is spread across several teams with
each team responsibility for a layer of functionality; when there
is a requirement for multi-level security.
Advantages Allows replacement of entire layers so long as the interface is
maintained. Redundant facilities (e.g., authentication) can be
provided in each layer to increase the dependability of the
system.
Disadvantages 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. Performance can be a problem because of multiple
levels of interpretation of a service request as it is processed at
each layer.

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A generic layered architecture

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The architecture of the iLearn system

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Layered information system architecture

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The architecture of the Mentcare system

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3- Repository architecture

 Sub-systems must exchange data. This may be done in

two ways:
 Shared data is held in a central database or repository and may
be accessed by all sub-systems;
 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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The Repository pattern

Name Repository

Description All data in a system is managed in a central repository that is

accessible to all system components. Components do not
interact directly, only through the repository.
Example Figure 6.9 is an example of an IDE where the components
use a repository of system design information. Each software
tool generates information which is then available for use by
other tools.
When used You should use this pattern when you have a system in which
large volumes of information are generated that has to be
stored for a long time. You may also use it in data-driven
systems where the inclusion of data in the repository triggers
an action or tool.
Advantages Components can be independent—they do not need to know
of the existence of other components. Changes made by one
component can be propagated to all components. All data can
be managed consistently (e.g., backups done at the same
time) as it is all in one place.
Disadvantages The repository is a single point of failure so problems in the
repository affect the whole system. May be inefficiencies in
organizing all communication through the repository.
Distributing the repository across several computers may be
difficult.

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A repository architecture for an IDE

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A repository architecture for a language
processing system

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4- Client-server architecture

 Distributed system model which shows how data and

processing is distributed across a range of components.
 Can be implemented on a single computer.

 Set of stand-alone servers which provide specific

services such as printing, data management, etc.

 Set of clients which call on these services.

 Network which allows clients to access servers.

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The Client–server pattern

Name Client-server

Description In a client–server architecture, the functionality of the system is

organized into services, with each service delivered from a
separate server. Clients are users of these services and access
servers to make use of them.
Example Figure 6.11 is an example of a film and video/DVD library
organized as a client–server system.
When used Used when data in a shared database has to be accessed from a
range of locations. Because servers can be replicated, may also
be used when the load on a system is variable.
Advantages The principal advantage of this model is that servers can be
distributed across a network. General functionality (e.g., a printing
service) can be available to all clients and does not need to be
implemented by all services.
Disadvantages Each service is a single point of failure so susceptible to denial of
service attacks or server failure. Performance may be
unpredictable because it depends on the network as well as the
system. May be management problems if servers are owned by
different organizations.

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A client–server architecture for a film library

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5- Pipe and filter architecture

 Functional transformations process their inputs to

produce outputs.

 May be referred to as a pipe and filter model (as in UNIX

shell).

 Variants of this approach 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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The pipe and filter pattern

Name Pipe and filter

Description 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. The data flows (as in a pipe) from one component
to another for processing.
Example Figure 6.13 is an example of a pipe and filter system used for
processing invoices.
When used Commonly used in data processing applications (both batch- and
transaction-based) where inputs are processed in separate stages to
generate related outputs.
Advantages Easy to understand and supports transformation reuse. Workflow style
matches the structure of many business processes. Evolution by
adding transformations is straightforward. Can be implemented as
either a sequential or concurrent system.
Disadvantages The format for data transfer has to be agreed upon between
communicating transformations. 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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An example of the pipe and filter architecture
used in a payments system

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A pipe and filter compiler architecture

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Examples of Application Architectures Types

 Data processing applications

 Data driven applications that process data in batches without
explicit user intervention during the processing.
 Transaction processing applications
 Data-centred applications that process user requests and
update information in a system database.
 Event processing systems
 Applications where system actions depend on interpreting
events from the system’s environment.
 Language processing systems
 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

 Two very widely used generic application architectures are

transaction processing systems and language processing
systems.
 Transaction processing systems
 E-commerce systems;
 Reservation systems.
 Language processing systems
 Compilers;
 Command interpreters.

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Key points

 A software architecture is a description of how a software

system is organized.
 Architectural design decisions include decisions on the
type of application, the distribution of the system, the
architectural styles to be used.
 Architectures may be documented from several different
perspectives or views such as a conceptual view, a
logical view, a process view, and a development view.
 Architectural patterns are a means of reusing knowledge
about generic system architectures. They describe the
architecture, explain when it may be used and describe
its advantages and disadvantages.
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Key points

 Models of application systems architectures help us

understand and compare applications, validate
application system designs and assess large-scale
components for reuse.
 Transaction processing systems are interactive systems
that allow information in a database to be remotely
accessed and modified by a number of users.
 Language processing systems are used to translate
texts from one language into another and to carry out the
instructions specified in the input language. They include
a translator and an abstract machine that executes the
generated language.
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