A Holistic View of Architecture Definition, Evolution, and Analysis

This report emerged from a series of technical reports, each of which analyzed a single architectural quality attribute. In this report, we take a step back from the details of any specific quality attribute and instead focus on how architectural decisions and architectural analysis spanning multiple quality attributes can be performed in a sustainable and ongoing way. This approach requires taking a holistic view of architectural activities that does not focus on a single quality attribute and that does not end when code is written or released. It is then possible to reason about the synergies and tradeoffs among quality attributes. Synergies present an architect with unparalleled opportunities--where the choice of a single mechanism might result in benefits for multiple quality attribute concerns. In this process, architects and analysts must pay attention to the positive and negative effects of decisions since they may result in unacceptable tradeoffs that undermine system quality. This report emphasizes the importance of ongoing governance, analysis, and evaluation. To make this approach practical, it must be automated (to the extent possible), otherwise the analysis will not be done or will not be done often enough. The report concludes with a six-step meta-playbook, a process you can use for creating your own analysis process.