ISBN-13: 9783540878780 / Angielski / Miękka / 2008 / 250 str.
ISBN-13: 9783540878780 / Angielski / Miękka / 2008 / 250 str.
Models are used in all kinds of engineering disciplines to abstract from the various details of the modelled entity in order to focus on a speci?c aspect. Like a blueprint in civil engineering, a software architecture providesan abstraction from the full software system s complexity. It allows software designers to get an overview on the system underdevelopmentandtoanalyzeitsproperties.Inthissense, modelsarethefoundation needed for software development to become a true engineering discipline. Especially when reasoning on a software system s extra-functional properties, its software architecture carries the necessary information for early, design-time analyses. These analyses take the software architecture as input and can be used to direct the design process by allowing a systematic evaluation of different design alternatives. For example, they can be used to cancel out decisions which would lead to architecture - signs whose implementation would not comply with extra-functionalrequirements like performance or reliability constraints. Besides such quality attributes directly visible to the end user, internal quality attributes, e.g., maintainability, also highly depend on the system s architecture. In addition to the above-mentioned technical aspects of software architecture m- els, non-technical aspects, especially project management-related activities, require an explicit software architecture model. The models are used as input for cost esti- tions, time-, deadline-, and resource planning for the development teams. They serve the project management activities of planning, executing, and controlling, which are necessary to deliver high-quality software systems in time and within the budget."