Software Engineering

MOHAMMAD SALIM HAMDARD

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 Architectural design

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Topics covered

Architectural design
Architectural design decisions
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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Agility and architecture

It is generally accepted that an early stage of agile

processes is to design an overall systems architecture.
Incremental development of architectures is not usually
successful.
Refactoring the system architecture is usually expensive
because it affects so many components in the system to
adapt them to the architectural changes.

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The architecture of a packing robot
control system

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Architectural abstraction

You can design software architectures at two levels of

abstraction, which call architecture in the small and
architecture in the large:
 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.
 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.

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Advantages of explicitly designing
and documenting software
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.

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Architectural representations

System architectures are often modeled informally using

simple block diagrams, showing entities and relationships.
Each box in the diagram represents a component. Boxes
within boxes indicate that the component has been
decomposed to subcomponents.
Arrows mean that data and or control signals are passed
from component to component in the direction of the
arrows.
But these have been criticized because they lack
semantics, do not show the types of relationships between
entities nor the visible properties of entities in the architecture.

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Use of architectural models

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.
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.
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.

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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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Architecture and system
characteristics
Performance
 Localize critical operations and minimize communications. Use few
relatively large components rather than small.
Security
 Use a layered architecture with critical assets in the inner layers.
Availability
 Include redundant components and mechanisms for fault tolerance.
Maintainability
 Use fine-grain, replaceable components.

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Architectural views

It is impossible to represent all relevant information about a

system’s architecture in a single diagram, as a graphical
model can only show one view or perspective of the system.
It might show how a system is decomposed into modules,
how the runtime processes interact, or the different ways in
which system components are distributed across a network.

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Cont..

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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, the breakdown of the
software into components.
A physical view, which shows the system hardware and
how software components are distributed across the
processors in the system.

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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 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.

Example Figure coming 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.

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

Organises the system into a set of layers (or abstract

machines) each of which provide a set of services.
Supports the incremental development of systems. As a
layer is developed, some of the services provided by that
layer may be made available to users.
The architecture is also changeable and portable. If its
interface is unchanged, a new layer with extended
functionality can replace an existing layer.

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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.
Example A layered model of a digital learning system to support learning
of all subjects in schools.
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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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 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.
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 coming 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. 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 coming 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.
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.

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An example of the pipe and filter
architecture used in a payments
system

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Application architectures

Application systems are designed to meet an organizational

need.
As businesses have much in common- they need to hire
people, issue invoices, keep accounts and so on.
 Therefore, 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 design checklist.

 we can compare your application architecture with generic
application architecture. To check whether your design is consistent
with generic architecture.
As a way of organizing the work of the development team.
 The application architectures identify stable structural features of
the system architectures. In many cases it can be develop in parallel,
you can assign work to group members to implement different
components with in architecture.
As a means of assessing components for reuse.
 If we have components we can reuse it, we compare it with generic
structures to check comparability.

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As a vocabulary for talking about application types.
 If you are talking about specific application or trying to compare
applications, then you can check the concept identified in the
generic architecture to talk about this application.

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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
 A transaction in the context of database is logical unit of work that
access and possibly modifies the contents of a database.
 Data-centered 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

Transaction processing systems

 E-commerce systems;
 Reservation systems.
Language processing systems
 Compilers;
 Command interpreters.

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Transaction processing systems

Transaction processing system 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.

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The software architecture of an ATM
system

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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.

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The architecture of a language
processing system

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 THANK YOU

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