Embedding architectural support in industry

This paper discusses the work of the software architect by describing a software architect's concerns and the documents that a software architect should produce. It proposes a definition of software architecture and discusses archtectural design criteria based on the idea that every architecture is expected to meet a specified set of goals. We start with a discussion of the meaning of "architecture", then discuss the goals of an architect, proceed to what's needed to achieve those goals, describe ways of documenting architectural design decisions, and finally discuss how to determine how well the design goals have been met for any given architecture.

Software architecture has been proposed in the nineties as a high-level software design method for specifying software systems in terms of components and their relation. Since then, software architectures have become an indispensable part of software design. However, it remains dubious to what extent practitioners use software architectures in their software design. To better understand this, we conduct a survey study among a number of practitioners from both industry and academia and aim at understanding their level of knowledge and experience in software architectures. Our survey consists of a questionnaire of 20 questions, presented in four distinct sections. We run our survey on 50 participants, 11 of whom are from academia and the rest 39 are from industry. As a result of our analysis, we reached the following conclusion: while software architecture is highly crucial for practitioners given the nature of their software projects, practitioners' knowledge on software architectures is too limited. Practitioners use Unified Modelling Language (UML), which views software architectures as a method of communicating system structures. However, other aspects such as architectural analysis are equally crucial in detecting design errors and verifying software designs for quality properties.

2005

Despite the recognition of the importance of capturing and reusing architecture knowledge, there is no suitable support mechanism. We have developed a conceptual framework to provide appropriate guidance and tool support for making tacit or informally described architecture knowledge explicit. This framework identifies different approaches to capturing implicit architecture knowledge. We discuss different usages of the captured knowledge to improve the effectiveness of architecture processes. This paper also presents a prototype of a web-based architecture knowledge management tool to support the storage and retrieval of the captured knowledge. The paper concludes with open issues that we plan to address in order to successfully transfer this support mechanism for capturing and using architecture knowledge to the industry.

Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 2001

A new integrative framework for software architecture is proposed, based on solid notions from traditional architecture. It combines elements taken from the Unified Process Model, that has been adjusted to this end, and a generic model for information management. It is argued that this framework can contribute to the development of higher quality software.

2006

Despite considerable attention paid on software architecture, the organizational aspects of architecture design remain largely unexplored. This study analyses the stakeholders participating in architecture design in three software companies, their problems in relation to architecture, and the rationale for architecture description they emphasize.

2000

The ideas and findings in this report should not be construed as an official DoD position. It is published in the interest of scientific and technical information exchange.

2009

Management of software architecture knowledge (AK) is vital for improving an organization's architectural capabilities. To support the architecting process within our industrial partner: Astron, the Dutch radio astronomy institute, we implemented the Knowledge Architect (KA): a tool suite for creating, using, translating, sharing and managing AK. The KA tool suite entails specialized support for integrating the various process activities and supporting collaboration between the stakeholders. This report discusses the tools included and features of KA. We also discuss different usages of the KA for capturing and using AK to support the architecture process.

2021 IEEE 18th International Conference on Software Architecture (ICSA), 2021

Over the past three decades software engineering researchers have produced a wide range of techniques and tools for understanding the architectures of large, complex systems. However, these have tended to be one-off research projects, and their idiosyncratic natures have hampered research collaboration, extension and combination of the tools, and technology transfer. The area of software architecture is rich with disjoint research and development infrastructures, and datasets that are either proprietary or captured in proprietary formats. This paper describes a concerted effort to reverse these trends. We have designed and implemented a flexible and extensible infrastructure (SAIN) with the goal of sharing, replicating, and advancing software architecture research. We have demonstrated that SAIN is capable of incorporating the constituent tools extracted from three independently developed, large, long-lived software architecture research environments. We discuss SAIN's ambitious goals, the challenges we have faced in achieving those goals, the key decisions made in SAIN's design and implementation, the lessons learned from our experience to date, and our ongoing and future work.

Software Architecture Knowledge Management, 2009

Software architecture is a recognized and indispensable part of system development. Software architecture is often defined in terms of components and connectors, or the "high-level conception of a system". In recent years, there has been an awareness that not only the design itself is important to capture, but also the knowledge that has led to this design. This so-called architectural knowledge concerns the set of design decisions and their rationale. Capturing architectural knowledge is difficult. Part of it is tacit and difficult to verbalize. Like developers, software architects are not inclined to document their solutions. Establishing ways to effectively manage and organize architectural knowledge is one of the key challenges of the field of software architecture. This architectural knowledge plays a role during development, when architects, developers, and other stakeholders must communicate about the system to be developed, possibly in a global setting. It also plays a role during the evolution of a system, when changes are constrained by decisions made earlier.

This position paper examines software architecture through the lenses of four organizational perspectives and identifies opportunities for research to improve the positioning and support of the discipline within organizations. It concludes that while software architecture may rest on solid technical foundations, its position in the organization is not as firm.