Design It!

What Is Software Architecture?

A system’s software architecture is the set of significant design decisions about how the software is organized to promote desired quality attributes and other properties.

A design decision might be significant for any number of reasons. It might represent a point of no return or influence quality attributes, schedule, or costs. A significant decision might be one that affects many people or forces other software systems to change. In any case, significant design decisions are costly to change later if you get them wrong.

To promote a quality attribute means to encourage it to appear in the software system. When the architecture is well organized, it will boost the quality attributes stakeholders want and downplay ...