Architectural Design – A
closer Look
ICT 3201: Software Engineering
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Topics covered
• Architectural design decisions
• Architectural views
• Architectural patterns
• Application architectures
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Software architecture
• The design process for identifying the sub-systems making up a
system and the framework for sub-system control and
communication is architectural design.
• The output of this design process is a description of the software
architecture.
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Architectural design
• An early stage of the system design process.
• Represents the link between specification and design processes.
• Often carried out in parallel with some specification activities.
• It involves identifying major system components and their
communications.
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The
architecture
of a packing
robot
control
system
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Architectural design decisions
• Architectural design is a creative process so the process
differs depending on the type of system being developed.
• However, a number of common decisions span all design
processes and these decisions affect the non-functional
characteristics of the system.
• Is there a generic application architecture that can be used?
• How will the system be distributed?
• What architectural styles are appropriate?
• What approach will be used to structure the system?
• How will the system be decomposed into modules?
• What control strategy should be used?
• How will the architectural design be evaluated?
• How should the architecture be documented?
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Architecture reuse
• Systems in the same domain often have similar architectures
that reflect domain concepts.
• Application product lines are built around a core architecture
with variants that satisfy particular customer requirements.
• The architecture of a system may be designed around one of
more architectural patterns or ‘styles’.
• These capture the essence of an architecture and can be instantiated in
different ways.
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Architecture and system characteristics
• Performance
• Localize critical operations and minimize communications. Use large
rather than fine-grain components.
• Security
• Use a layered architecture with critical assets in the inner layers.
• Safety
• Localize 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 views
• What views or perspectives are useful when designing and
documenting a system’s architecture?
• What notations should be used for describing architectural
models?
• Each architectural model only shows one view or perspective
of the system.
• It might show how a system is decomposed into modules, how the
run-time processes interact or the different ways in which system
components are distributed across a network. For both design and
documentation, you usually need to present multiple views of the
software architecture.
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4 + 1 view model of software architecture
• A logical view, which shows the key abstractions in the
system as objects or object classes.
• A process view, which shows how, at run-time, the system is
composed of interacting processes.
• A development view, which shows how the software is
decomposed for development.
• A physical view, which shows the system hardware and how
software components are distributed across the processors
in the system.
• Related using use cases or scenarios (+1)
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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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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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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 LIBSYS system
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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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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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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
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Application architectures
• Application systems are designed to meet an organizational
need.
• As businesses have much in common, their application
systems also tend to have a common architecture that
reflects the application requirements.
• A generic application architecture is an architecture for a
type of software system that may be configured and adapted
to create a system that meets specific requirements.
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Use of application architectures
• As a starting point for architectural design.
• As a design checklist.
• As a way of organizing the work of the development team.
• As a means of assessing components for reuse.
• As a vocabulary for talking about application types.
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Examples of application 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
• Focus here is on transaction processing and language
processing systems.
• Transaction processing systems
• E-commerce systems;
• Reservation systems.
• Language processing systems
• Compilers;
• Command interpreters.
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Transaction processing systems
• Process user requests for information from a
database or requests to update the database.
• From a user perspective a transaction is:
• Any coherent sequence of operations that satisfies a goal;
• For example - find the times of flights from London to Paris.
• Users make asynchronous requests for service which
are then processed by a transaction manager.
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The structure of transaction processing applications
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The software architecture of an ATM system
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Information systems architecture
• Information systems have a generic architecture
that can be organised as a layered architecture.
• These are transaction-based systems as interaction
with these systems generally involves database
transactions.
• Layers include:
• The user interface
• User communications
• Information retrieval
• System database
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Layered information system architecture
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The architecture of the MHC-PMS
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Web-based information systems
• Information and resource management systems are now
usually web-based systems where the user interfaces are
implemented using a web browser.
• For example, e-commerce systems are Internet-based
resource management systems that accept electronic orders
for goods or services and then arrange delivery of these
goods or services to the customer.
• In an e-commerce system, the application-specific layer
includes additional functionality supporting a ‘shopping cart’
in which users can place a number of items in separate
transactions, then pay for them all together in a single
transaction.
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Server implementation
•These systems are often implemented as
multi-tier client server/architectures
• The web server is responsible for all user communications,
with the user interface implemented using a web browser;
• The application server is responsible for implementing
application-specific logic as well as information storage
and retrieval requests;
• The database server moves information to and from the
database and handles transaction management.
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Language processing systems
• Accept a natural or artificial language as input and generate
some other representation of that language.
• May include an interpreter to act on the instructions in the
language that is being processed.
• Used in situations where the easiest way to solve a problem is
to describe an algorithm or describe the system data
• Meta-case tools process tool descriptions, method rules, etc and
generate tools.
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The architecture of a language processing system
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Compiler components
• A lexical analyzer, which takes input language tokens and
converts them to an internal form.
• A symbol table, which holds information about the names of
entities (variables, class names, object names, etc.) used in the
text that is being translated.
• A syntax analyzer, which checks the syntax of the language
being translated.
• A syntax tree, which is an internal structure representing the
program being compiled.
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Compiler components
• A semantic analyzer that uses information from
the syntax tree and the symbol table to check
the semantic correctness of the input language
text.
• A code generator that ‘walks’ the syntax tree
and generates abstract machine code.
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A pipe and filter compiler architecture
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A repository architecture for a language processing system
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References
• Ian Sommerville, “Software Engineering”, Chapter 6 – Architectural
Design
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