Software Architecture
Document Outline
This section describes the boundaries of what the system will do/not do, from an architectural perspective. Do not repeat the requirements here, but do briefly summarize them and discuss major components (e.g. database, user interface), and interfaces to other systems.
Indicate what other documents are referenced by this document.
This document serves as the primary documentation of the software architecture. Describe how this is different from other documents.
This section describes how the architecture will be represented. In particular, it will specify the architectural views that will be used (4+1 model).
This section describes the software requirements and objectives that have some significant impact on the architecture; for example, safety, security, privacy, use of an off-the-shelf product, portability, distribution, and reuse. It also captures the special constraints that may apply: architectural style, design and implementation strategy, development tools, team structure, schedule, legacy code, and so on.
This section documents the use-case view and a few typical use-case realizations. The requirements will not be repeated here, but the use-case diagram will summarize the use-cases.
Insert and describe all use-case diagrams here. Refer to functional requirements in the SRS.
Insert and describe use-case realizations here. These may include sequence or activity diagrams for non-trivial use-cases.
This section describes the architecturally significant parts of the design model, such as its decomposition into subsystems and packages. And for each significant package, its decomposition into classes and class utilities. You should introduce architecturally significant classes and describe their responsibilities, as well as a few very important relationships, operations, and attributes. The architectural style should be documented here.
This subsection describes the overall decomposition of the design model in terms of its package hierarchy and layers.
Insert a package diagram with dependencies here. Packages may include important classes and interfaces.
Insert high-level class diagrams here.
This section describes how classes and packages will be organized into components to be deployed. Component interfaces should be specified.
This section describes how components will be deployed to hardware nodes in the production environment. Include a deployment diagram here. The discussion should include particular technologies, third-party and commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software, and tools that will be used.
This section describes the user interface. Screen mockups will be included here.
This section describes characteristics of the architecture that allow it to scale and meet target performance constraints.
A description of how the software architecture contributes to all capabilities (other than functionality) of the system: extensibility, reliability, portability, and so on. If these characteristics have special significance, such as safety, security or privacy implications, they must be clearly delineated.
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