Software Architect's Handbook

Making design decisions

The set of software requirements consists of a series of design issues that must be solved. For each of these design issues, such as providing certain business functionality, respecting a particular constraint, meeting performance objectives, or providing a certain level of availability, there may be numerous ways to solve the problem. You will need to consider the strengths and weaknesses of these alternatives in order to select the most appropriate choice.

A large part of software architecture design is making design decisions to resolve issues so that a solution can be implemented. As the software architect, you will be leading the decision-making process.

It is a collaborative process, and usually the best designs ...