CISC 322 Midterm

architecture

_________________ is the fundamental organization of a system embodied in its components, their relationships to each other, and to the environment, and the principles guiding its design and evolution

system, missions

A ____________ is a collection of components organized to accomplish a specific function or set of functions. The term system encompasses individual applications, systems in the traditional sense, subsystems, systems of systems, product lines, product families, whole enterprises, and other aggregations of interest. It exists to fulfill one or more ___________ in its environment.

environment

The _________________, or context, determines the setting and circumstances of developmental, operational, political, and other influences upon that system

mission

A ____________ is a use or operation for which a system is intended by one or more stakeholders to meet some set of objectives

stakeholder

A _________________ is an individual, team, or organization (or classes thereof) with interests in, or concerns relative to, a system (the people who actually operate/run the system)

architecture

(Kruchten defintion) An ________________ is the set of significant decisions about the organization of a software system, the selection of structural elements and their interfaces by which the system is composes, together with their behaviour as specified in the collaborations among those elements, the composition of these elements into progressively larger subsystems, and the architectural style that guides this organization — these elements and their interfaces, their collaborations, and their composition

system architecture

• Structure: Several computers, networks, databases, etc., connected together

• Analogy: Plan of city

conceptual software architecture

• Abstract structure: Large piece of software with many parts and interconnections

• Analogy: Blueprint of house

Concrete software architecture

• Actual structure: Large piece of software with many parts and interconnections

• Analogy: Actual structure of house

conceptual architecture, concrete architecture

architectural style

• Form of structure, e.g.,

  • “Pipes” between components, or

  • “Layered” system, or

  • “Bulletin board” system

• Analogy: Style of a building

reference architecture

• General architecture for an application domain

• Example: Common structure for compilers or for operating systems

product line architecture (PLA)

• Architecture for a line of similar software products

• Example: Software structure for a family of computer games

architecture, high, hard, technical and non-technical, early

_______________:

• Structure of system (components and connectors)

• _______ level and _______ to change (better get it right!)

• Concerned with ________________________ requirements (e.g. Security, Legal, Outsourcing)

• Makes sense for systems with MLOCs (millions of lines of code)

• Very _______ in life cycle

design, low, technical, late

___________:

• Inner structure of the components

• _______ level (information hiding and interfaces help it change)

• Mostly _____________ concerns

• Makes sense for systems with KLOCs (thousands of lines of code)

• _______ in life cycle

live architecture

• Is in head(s) of software developer(s), the “software architect”

• May be abstract or mostly concrete

• Is a “mental model”, “wetware”; may be fuzzy, inaccurate, incomplete, incorrect…

complexity

• Architecture simplifies the system, by concentrating on structure, not content or semantics

• Cognitive complexity: how hard to understand or visualize

reverse engineering

• Extraction of design (or architecture) from implementation and from developers

• “Design recovery”

software architecture

The ____________________ of a program or computing system is the structure (or structures) of the system

components, externally visible, relationships

Software architecture comprises of:

• Software _______________

• __________________ properties of the components

• __________________ between the components

externally visible properties of components

These refer to those assumptions other components can make of a component, such as:

• Provided services

• Performance characteristics

• Fault handling

• Shared resource usage

• Etc.

requirement engineering, architecture analysis, design and implement, testing

requirements

__________________ come from users and stakeholders who have demands/needs

analyst/requirement engineer

An _________________________:

• Elicits demands/needs (raw requirements)

• Analyzes them for consistency, feasibility, and completeness

• Formulates them as requirements and writes down a specification (textual document to show customer “this is what we believe you want”)

• Validates that the gathered requirements reflect the needs/demands of stakeholders

requirement gathering

Questions that arise during ____________________:

• Is this a business need (high-level vision) or a requirement (i.e. specific, measurable)?

• Is this a nice-to-have vs. must-have?

• Is this the goal of the system or a contractual requirement?

• Is this a functional requirement or a non-functional requirement?

• Do we have to program in Java? Why?

software specification

______________________ acts as a bridge between the real-world (demands and needs of stakeholders) and the software system