Evaluating Software Architectures: Methods and Case Studies (SEI Series in Software Engineering)

• Quick, low-cost techniques for optimizing any architecture in advance.
• Ensuring maximum performance, security, reliability, and maintainability.
• Step-by-step guidance and detailed practical examples based on realistic artifacts.

The foundation of any software system is its architecture. Using this book, you can evaluate every aspect of architecture in advance, at remarkably low cost -- identifying improvements that can dramatically improve any system's performance, security, reliability, and maintainability. As the practice of software architecture has matured, it has become possible to identify causal connections between architectural design decisions and the qualities and properties that result downstream in the systems that follow from them. This book shows how, offering step-by-step guidance, as well as detailed practical examples -- complete with sample artifacts reflective of those that evaluators will encounter. The techniques presented here are applicable not only to software architectures, but also to system architectures encompassing computing hardware, networking equipment, and other elements. For all software architects, software engineers, developers, IT managers, and others responsible for creating, evaluating, or implementing software architectures.

The authors are senior members of the technical staff at the Software Engineering Institute. Paul Clements and Rick Kazman are co-authors of Software Architecture in Practice (Addison-Wesley). Clements formerly worked at the Naval Research Laboratory. Kazman, who gave a keynote talk at OOPSLA 99 on the subject of this book, is also an adjunct professor at the Universities of Waterloo and Toronto. Klein serves on the executive committee for the Masters of Software Engineering program at Carnegie Mellon University.