Architecture Production

Definition

Architecture Production

the architecting task during which an architecture is produced

Classification

As illustrated in the preceding figure, architecture production is part of the following inheritance hierarchy:

• Type: Concrete
• Superclass: Task
• Subclasses: None

Responsibilities

The typical responsibilities of the architecture production task are to:

• Create and iterate the architecture
• Determine the architectural elements of the system, center, or component:
  • Identify these architectural elements.
  • Determine the black-box responsibilities of these architectural elements.
  • Determine the relationships and interfaces between these architectural elements.
  • Determine the way these architectural elements will collaborate to achieve their allocated requirements.
• Verify and trace the logical architecture(s) back to their requirements.

Preconditions

Architecture production typically can begin when the following preconditions hold:

• The initiation phase has started.
• The architecture team is adequately:
  • Staffed.
  • Trained in architecture production.
• An initial version of the operational goals (functions) section of the application vision statement exists.
• An initial version of the architecturally significant requirements in the system requirements specification have been specified.

Completion Criteria

Although an architecture will be subject to iteration and evolution as long as the associated system is being maintained, architecture production is typically complete when the following postconditions hold:

• The architecture is complete:
  • All architectural elements of all relevant types have been identified.
  • The black-box responsibilities of these architectural elements have been determined.
  • The relationships and interfaces between these architectural elements have been determined.
  • The way these architectural elements will collaborate to achieve their allocated requirements has been determined.
• The architecture has been analyzed and shown to fulfill its allocated architecturally-significant requirements.
• The relevant views and perspectives of the architecture has been documented.
• The architecture has been evaluated and approved by its stakeholders.

Steps

Logical architecture production typically involves the architecture team performing the following steps in an incremental, iterative, parallel, and time-boxed manner:

• Preparation.
  Prepare by identifying and evaluating the:
  • Architecturally significant goals in the application vision statement.
  • Architecturally significant requirements in the system requirements specification.
  • Reference architecture(s) for modification, addition, and deletion of components.
• View and Perspective Selection.
  Determine the appropriate types of views and perspectives of the architecture to produce:
  • Identify appropriate (i.e., useful and cost-effective) architectural views to produce
    (e.g., decomposition views, functional views, interface views, collaboration views, data views, and state views).
  • Identify appropriate perspectives of these architectural views to produce.
    (e.g., availability, performance, reliability, robustness, safety, and security) to support specialty engineering disciplines.
• Architecture Development.
  Develop the architecture:
  • Identify the architectural elements based on the selected views and perspectives:
    • Subsystems and Assemblies
    • Data, Hardware, Software, Personnel, Procedural, and Facilities Components
    • Configuration Items
  • Determine the black-box responsibilities of these architectural elements.
  • Determine the relationships and interfaces between these architectural elements:
    • Application Programmer Interfaces (APIs)
    • Hardware interfaces
    • Wired and Wireless Communications Networks
    • Allocation of Software and Data to Hardware
  • Determine the way these architectural elements will collaborate to achieve their allocated requirements.
• Architectural Patterns Selection.
• Architectural Mechanism Production.
• Architecture Analysis.

Techniques

Logical architecture production typically can be performed using the following techniques:

• Abstraction
• Brainstorming
• Cohesion
• Cost/Benefit Analysis
• Cost Estimation
• Coupling
• Cross Functional Teams
• Engineering Tradeoff Analysis
• Gap Analysis
• Iteration
• Joint Application Development (JAD) sessions
• Modeling
• Parallel Development
• Patterns
• Prototyping
• Layering
• Reference Architectures
• Standards
• Timeboxing
• Views and Perspectives
• Whiteboards

Work Products

Logical architecture production typically results in the production of all or part of the following work products:

• Diagrams:
  • Content Management Architecture Diagram
  • Data Architecture Diagram
  • Deployment Diagram
  • Hardware Architecture Diagram
  • Integration Architecture Diagram
  • Navigation Diagram
  • Operational Availability Architecture Diagram
  • Operations Architecture Diagram
  • Scalability Architecture Diagram
  • Security Architecture Diagram
  • Software Architecture Diagram
  • Tier Diagram
  • User Interface Architecture Diagram
• Views such as:
  • Decomposition Views
  • Functional Views
  • Interface Views
  • Collaboration Views
  • Data Views
  • State Views
• Perspectives such as:
  • Avaliability Perspectives
  • Interoperability Perspectives
  • Performance Perspectives
  • Reliability Perspectives
  • Robustness Perspectives
  • Safety Perspectives
  • Security Perspectives
• Supporting Text
• Requirements traceability matrices

Guidelines

• The quality requirements (e.g., scalability, operational availability) often have a greater impact on the overall architecture than do most functional requirements.