A Case Study based Approach for Effective use of Software Architecture Guidelines

Software architecture is emerging as an important discipline for engineers of software. Software architects have been limited by a lack of standardized ways to represent architecture as well as analysis methods to predict whether an architecture will result in an implementation that meets the requirements. Architects also have had little guidance in how to go about designing the architecture, which decisions should be made first, what level of detail the architecture should encompass, how conflicting concerns should be satisfied and what range of issues the architecture should cover. A case study is performed to illustrate architectural design guidance in form of functional dimensions and structural dimensions essential to identify the requirements as well as overall structure of database systems. General Terms Software Architecture, Architectural Design, Architectural Styles, Architectural Patterns