Processview

Processview is a term used in software architecture to describe the dynamic aspects of a system, particularly within Philippe Kruchten’s 4+1 architectural view model. The process view focuses on runtime behavior: how the system’s components are allocated to processes, how those processes run concurrently, and how they communicate and synchronize with each other. It is the view that addresses performance, scalability, and resource usage under real-world load.

Key concepts of the process view include processes and threads, inter-process communication, synchronization, and concurrency control. It specifies how components are distributed across processes and, in distributed systems, across machines. It also covers communication patterns such as message passing, remote procedure calls, or shared resources, and the mechanisms used to coordinate access to shared data. The process view aims to ensure that nonfunctional requirements like responsiveness, throughput, fault tolerance, and scalability are achievable through the system’s runtime behavior.

Artifacts commonly associated with the process view include process allocation maps, concurrency models, and timing or performance scenarios. It is validated against use cases and scenarios to verify that the system behaves correctly under concurrent execution and distributed operation.

Relation to other views is a defining feature: the process view complements the logical view (the object model) and the development view (module organization) by translating them into executable processes. It also interacts with the physical view to reflect deployment and distribution.

Common concerns include avoiding deadlocks, reducing contention, and preventing bottlenecks due to inter-process communication.