Software Architect's Handbook

Software architecture patterns

When designing a software architecture, some of the design issues that you will face have already been solved by others. Software architecture patterns provide solutions for recurring architecture design problems. Patterns are discovered while observing what people were doing successfully to solve a particular problem, and then documenting those patterns so that they can be reused. They can be leveraged in an architecture design if the software application has the same design issue.

Software architects should take advantage of the work and experience of others when they have a problem that can be solved by a pattern. The challenging part is to be aware of what patterns are available, and which ones are applicable ...