Chapter 6 – Architectural Design
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Topics covered
Architectural design decisions
Architectural views
Architectural patterns
Application architectures
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Architectural design
Architectural design is concerned with understanding
how a software system should be organized and
designing the overall structure of that system.
Architectural design is the critical link between design
and requirements engineering, as it identifies the main
structural components in a system and the relationships
between them.
The output of the architectural design process is an
architectural model that describes how the system is
organized as a set of communicating components.
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The architecture of a packing robot control
system
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Advantages of explicit architecture
Stakeholder communication
▪ Architecture may be used as a focus of discussion by system
stakeholders.
System analysis
▪ Means that analysis of whether the system can meet its non-
functional requirements is possible.
Large-scale reuse
▪ The architecture may be reusable across a range of systems
▪ Product-line architectures may be developed.
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Architectural design decisions
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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.
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Architectural design decisions
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Architectural views
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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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Architectural views
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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
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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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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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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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Application architectures
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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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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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The software architecture of an ATM system
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The architecture of the Mentcare system
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Key points
A software architecture is a description of how a software
system is organized.
Architectural design decisions include decisions on the
type of application, the distribution of the system, the
architectural styles to be used.
Architectures may be documented from several different
perspectives or views such as a conceptual view, a
logical view, a process view, and a development view.
Architectural patterns are a means of reusing knowledge
about generic system architectures. They describe the
architecture, explain when it may be used and describe
its advantages and disadvantages.
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Key points
Models of application systems architectures help us
understand and compare applications, validate
application system designs and assess large-scale
components for reuse.
Transaction processing systems are interactive systems
that allow information in a database to be remotely
accessed and modified by a number of users.
Language processing systems are used to translate
texts from one language into another and to carry out the
instructions specified in the input language. They include
a translator and an abstract machine that executes the
generated language.
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