Fritz
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Gaudí System Architecting
« on: 2008-08-26 23:32:35 » |
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I have been following this project evolve for a number of years. The site has provided me with a great deal of inspiration and tools to do my IT job in design and planning systems. I have made use of it recently and thought the CoV crew would find it useful in many ways as well. It seems to me to be one of the few places on the net where this kind of information is presented rigorously and with the intent to help in the design and engineering process and the documentation.
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Fritz
Gaudi Home Page
Source: Thesis: What is Systems Architecting in an Industrial Context? Date: work in progress Author: Gerrit Muller
1.1 Introduction
This thesis discusses the systems architecting of software and technology intensive products. Typical examples of software and technology intensive products are televisions, DVD-players, MRI scanners, and printers. The creation of these products is a multi-disciplinary effort by hundreds of engineers. The time between first product ideas and introduction into the market is in the order of a few months to a few years. The concept architecture is borrowed from the building discipline. Architecture in building has a long history, with well known names as Vetruvius, Gaudí , Lloyd Wright, Koolhaas, and many many more. System architecture can be compared with building architecture. The architecture of a building is for a large part the experience that people get when they interact with the building, ranging from “how does it fit in the environment?”, “what impression does it make?”, “is it nice to be there?”, to “is it useful?”. In other words, the less tangible aspects of the perception of the building and the experience with the building are important aspects of the architecture. The technical aspects of the structure and the construction of the building are also part of the architecture. The feasibility of an architectural vision is enhanced or constrained by these technical aspects. The architecture is a dynamic entity that evolves during the life-cycle of the building. Every phase has its own particular needs. Early-on the constructibility is important; later the usability and adaptability, and finally the disposability, become the points of attention. In this book the system architecture is a close metaphor of the building architecture.
The system architecture covers both the external aspects, often intangible such as perception and experience, and the internal aspects, often more tangible such as structure and construction. Note that this definition of architecture is rather broad, much broader for instance than usual in the software architecture community, see the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) inventory [37] for a much wider variation of definitions for architecture. Essential in this definition is the inclusion of the user context in architecture.<snip>
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