Incremental Software Architecture

Chapter 11Environment Behavior Drives End-State Architecture Decomposition

Once again we explore how to decompose an end-state architecture in a different way. Doing this would best prepare us for pursuing the incremental software architecture verification process, elaborated on in Chapters 12 to 15. This process calls for verifying parts of the end-state architecture and then certifying the overall grand-scale design.

So far, we have learned a number of methods of end-state architecture decomposition. The main one is driven by breaking the grand enterprise design into structural formations, such as business and technical sub-architectures. We also studied how to slice an end-state architecture into segments by analyzing business structures, such as layers, tiers, clusters, and federations. In addition, identifying volatile business areas is another method for segmenting an end-state architecture.

Now it is time to study how to dissect an end-state architecture into areas of behavior. To accomplish this, functionality, processes, and activities of systems and their related assets, such as applications, components, and middleware should be identified.

All these behaviors together would reveal the overall direction and strategy of an end-state architecture. Most important however, promote the functional decomposition of an end-state architecture.

The traditional term “functional decomposition” is largely known as the practice of breaking down a complex process into simple and ...