Software Architect

Definition

Software Architect

the role that is played when a person produces a software architecture for a system or application

Classification

As illustrated in the preceding figure, Software Architect is part of the following inheritance hierarchy.

• Type: Concrete
• Superclass: Architect
• Subclasses:
  • None

Responsibilities

The typical role-specific responsibilities of a Software Architect are to:

• Evaluate the requirements.
• Prioritize the requirements based on optimized implementation order given the system and software architecture.
• Help produce the system architecture (primarily the software components)
• Produce, document, maintain, and enforce the software architecture:
  • Identify and prioritize the architecturally significant requirements.
  • Determine the major software patterns and mechanisms.
  • Identify the major software subcomponents of the software architecture.
  • Ensure that these software components and mechanisms meet their associated requirements.
  • Make the strategic architectural decisions that constrain the design and implementation.
  • Document the architecture in the associated software architecture document.
  • Enforce the integrity of the software architecture by collaborating with and mentoring the development staff.
• Evaluate the implementation of the software architecture.

Software Architect typically inherits the general role responsibilities from the Role method component.

Personal Profile

To fulfill these responsibilities, a Software Architect typically should have the following personal characteristics, expertise, training, and experience:

Expertise

A Software Architect should typically have the following expertise:

• Be an abstract thinker (a “big-picture” person), who can work at high-levels of abstraction.
• Strong in strategic and analytical thinking.
• Able to see and understand:
  • The context of the software architecture.
  • The big picture without being caught up in diversionary details.
  • Beyond the obvious.
  • Patterns or connections between situations that are not obviously related.
  • Key or underlying issues in complex situations.
• Be able to manage and (re)prioritize the multiple concurrent issues, ambiguities, and contradictions that occur during the development of the software architecture.
• Be an excellent communicator who can explain and document the software architecture.
• Be able to understand both the application domain and the major technologies used to implement the software architecture.
• Know the major reusable software mechanisms and patterns.
• Have significant previous architecting, design, and implementation experience in similar endeavors.
• A bachelor’s degree or better in software engineering, computer science, or the equivalent.
• Industry certification as software architect (e.g., Sun Certified Enterprise Architect for Java 2 Platform).

Tasks

A Software Architect typically performs the following role-specific tasks in an iterative, incremental, parallel, and time-boxed manner:

• Requirements Engineering:
  • Requirements Analysis (i.e., requirements prioitization)
• System Architecting and Software Architecting:
  • Architecture Reuse
  • Architectural Patterns Selection
  • Logical Architecture Production
  • Physical Architecture Production
  • Architectural Mechanism Production
  • Architecture Prototyping
  • Architecture Documentation
  • Architecture Integrity Assurance
• Quality Control:
  • Quality Control – Requirements Evaluation
  • Quality Control – Implementation Evaluation

Software Architect typically inherits common role tasks from the Role method component.

Teams

A Software Architect typically performs these tasks as a member of the following teams:

• Architecture Team
• Requirements Evaluation Team
• Software Evaluation Team

Work Products

As a member of these teams, a Software Architect typically produces all or part of the following work products:

• Architecture Work Products:
  • System Architecture Document
  • Software Architecture Document
• Quality Work Products:
  • Inspection Report
  • Inspection Summary Report

Guidelines

• The same person may play both the systems architect and software architect roles, especially if the systems engineer was originally a software architect prior to learning about hardware and data engineering.
• This role typically inherits the common team guidelines from the Role method component.