Unit 6: Architectural Design
Architectural design is a process for identifying the sub-systems making up a system and the
framework for sub-system control and communication. The output of this design process is a
description of the software architecture. Architectural design is an early stage of the system design
process. It represents the link between specification and design processes and is often carried out in
parallel with some specification activities. It involves identifying major system components and their
communications.
Software architectures can be designed at two levels of abstraction:
i. Architecture in the small is concerned with the architecture of individual programs. At this
level, we are concerned with the way that an individual program is decomposed into
components.
ii. Architecture in the large is concerned with the architecture of complex enterprise systems
that include other systems, programs, and program components. These enterprise systems
are distributed over different computers, which may be owned and managed by different
companies.
Three advantages of explicitly designing and documenting software architecture:
• Stakeholder communication: Architecture may be used as a focus of discussion by system
stakeholders.
• System analysis: Well-documented architecture enables the analysis of whether the system
can meet its non-functional requirements.
• Large-scale reuse: The architecture may be reusable across a range of systems or entire lines
of products.
Software architecture is most often represented using simple, informal block diagrams showing
entities and relationships. Pros: simple, useful for communication with stakeholders, great for project
planning. Cons: lack of semantics, types of relationships between entities, visible properties of entities
in the architecture.
Getting the architectural design right is important and used for the following;
i. As a way of facilitating discussion about the system design - A high-level architectural view
of a system is useful for communication with system stakeholders and project planning
because it is not cluttered with detail. Stakeholders can relate to it and understand an abstract
view of the system. They can then discuss the system as a whole without being confused by
detail.
ii. As a way of documenting an architecture that has been designed - The aim here is to produce
a complete system model that shows the different components in a system, their interfaces
and their connections.
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?
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/styles, which capture the essence of an architecture and can be
instantiated in different ways. The particular architectural style should depend on the non-functional
system requirements:
• 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.
Architectural Views
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. The 4+1 view model of software
architecture includes:
• 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).
Architectural Patterns
Patterns are a means of representing, sharing and reusing knowledge. An architectural pattern is
a stylized description of a good design practice, which has been tried and tested in different
environments. Patterns should include information about when they are and when they are not
useful. Patterns may be represented using tabular and graphical descriptions.
Model-View-Controller Architecture
This serves as a basis of interaction management in many web-based systems. It decouples three
major interconnected components:
i. The model is the central component of the pattern that directly manages the data, logic and
rules of the application. It is the application's dynamic data structure, independent of the user
interface.
ii. A view can be any output representation of information, such as a chart or a diagram. Multiple
views of the same information are possible.
iii. The controller accepts input and converts it to commands for the model or view.
This pattern is supported by most language frameworks.
Pattern name Model-View-Controller (MVC)
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
Description
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.
The display presented to the user frequently changes over time in response to input
or computation. Different users have different needs for how they want to view the
Problem
programs information. The system needs to reflect data changes to all users in the
description
way that they want to view them, while making it easy to make changes to the user
interface.
Solution This involves separating the data being manipulated from the manipulation logic and
description the details of display using three components: Model (a problem-domain component
with data and operations, independent of the user interface), View (a data display
component), and Controller (a component that receives and acts on user input).
Advantages: views and controllers can be easily added, removed, or changed; views
can be added or changed during execution; user interface components can be
changed, even at runtime. Disadvantages: views and controller are often hard to
Consequences
separate; frequent updates may slow data display and degrade user interface
performance; the MVC style makes user interface components (views, controllers)
highly dependent on model components.
Layered Architecture
This is used to model the interfacing of sub-systems. It organizes the system into a set of layers (or
abstract machines) each of which provide a set of services. This architectural style supports the
incremental development of sub-systems in different layers. When a layer interface changes, only the
adjacent layer is affected.
Name Layered architecture
Organizes the system into layers with related functionality associated with each layer.
Description 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.
Used when building new facilities on top of existing systems; when the development
When used is spread across several teams with each team responsibility for a layer of
functionality; when there is a requirement for multi-level security.
Allows replacement of entire layers so long as the interface is maintained. Redundant
Advantages facilities (e.g., authentication) can be provided in each layer to increase the
dependability of the system.
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
Disadvantages
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.
Repository Architecture
In this architectural pattern 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
because it is an efficient data sharing mechanism.
Name Repository
All data in a system is managed in a central repository that is accessible to all system
Description
components. Components do not interact directly, only through the repository.
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
When used
in data-driven systems where the inclusion of data in the repository triggers an action
or tool.
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.
Advantages
All data can be managed consistently (e.g., backups done at the same time) as it is all
in one place.
The repository is a single point of failure so problems in the repository affect the whole
Disadvantages system. There may be inefficiencies in organizing all communication through the
repository. Distributing the repository across several computers may be difficult.
Client-server Architecture
This is a distributed system model which shows how data and processing is distributed across a range
of components, but can also be implemented on a single computer. It has a set of stand-alone servers
which provide specific services such as printing, data management, etc. and a set of clients which call
on these services. Network which allows clients to access servers.
Name Client-server
In a client-server architecture, the functionality of the system is organized into
Description services, with each service delivered from a separate server. Clients are users of these
services and access servers to make use of them.
Used when data in a shared database has to be accessed from a range of locations.
When used Because servers can be replicated, may also be used when the load on a system is
variable.
The principal advantage of this model is that servers can be distributed across a
Advantages network. General functionality (e.g., a printing service) can be available to all clients
and does not need to be implemented by all servers.
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
Disadvantages
as well as the system. May be management problems if servers are owned by different
organizations.
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. It is
not really suitable for interactive systems.
Name Pipe and filter
The processing of the data in a system is organized so that each processing component
Description (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.
Commonly used in data processing applications (both batch- and transaction-based)
When used
where inputs are processed in separate stages to generate related outputs.
Easy to understand and supports transformation reuse. Workflow style matches the
Advantages structure of many business processes. Evolution by adding transformations is
straightforward. Can be implemented as either a sequential or concurrent system.
The format for data transfer has to be agreed upon between communicating
transformations. Each transformation must parse its input and unparse its output to
Disadvantages
the agreed form. This increases system overhead and may mean that it is impossible
to reuse functional transformations that use incompatible data structures.
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.
Application architectures can be used as a:
• Starting point for architectural design.
• Design checklist.
• Way of organizing the work of the development team.
• Means of assessing components for reuse.
• Vocabulary for talking about application types.
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.