softwarearchitecture

Software architecture is the fundamental organization of a software system, captured in the components, their relationships, and the principles guiding its design and evolution. It defines the high-level structure that supports required behavior and quality attributes over the system’s lifecycle.

The primary goal is to address non-functional requirements such as modifiability, performance, security, reliability, scalability, and maintainability while managing complexity and risk.

An architecture description identifies the major components or modules, their interfaces, and the connectors that enable interaction, as well as deployment and runtime environments. It supports reasoning about system behavior, evolution, and constraints.

Architectures are expressed through views or models to satisfy diverse stakeholder concerns. Common viewpoints include logical, deployment, and process perspectives, and methods such as the 4+1 view model or architecture description languages.

Typical architectural styles and patterns include layered, client–server, microservices, event-driven, service-oriented, and pipe-and-filter; each offers trade-offs in coupling, cohesion, scalability, and maintainability.

Development and governance: architecture work is iterative and influenced by requirements, risk, and constraints. Architectural decisions are documented, for example in architecture decision records; architectures are validated through reviews, prototypes, or simulations.

The architecture evolves over time, guided by changing requirements, technology shifts, and deployment needs, with ongoing attention to quality attributes and maintainability.