Software Architecture: Foundations, Theory, and Practice

Chapter 8. Analysis

Rigorous models of software architectures present a number of advantages over informal boxes-and-lines diagrams. They force the software architect to address issues that might otherwise be missed or ignored. They allow more precise communication among the system's various stakeholders and form a solid blueprint for the system's construction, deployment, execution, and evolution. And they typically present more detail about the architecture than do informal models, so that more questions can be asked and answered more precisely—although there are certainly times where sufficient understanding about certain aspects of a system can be obtained even from informal models.

Definition. Architectural analysis is the activity of discovering important system properties using the system's architectural models.

Getting early, useful answers about relevant aspects of the system's architecture can help identify inappropriate or incorrect design decisions before they are propagated into the system, thus reducing the risk of system and project failures. It is important for a software architect, as well as other system stakeholders, to know which questions to ask about the architecture and why, how to ask them, and how best to ensure that they can be answered by extrapolating and interpreting the necessary information captured in the architecture's model.

All models will not be equally effective in helping to determine whether a given architecture satisfies a certain requirement. ...