Architecture Decisions Archives

Architecture Model, Meta-Model, and Meta-Meta Model

January 12, 2020January 12, 2020Mohamed Sami

Although the importance of architecture and the role of the architect in the digital-first initiatives we are living in today in the different business domains and industries, the architecture’s main vocabularies and terminologies are still not well understood due to non-acceptable widely used definitions and the different perspectives of each terminology.

In this article, I would like to deep dive into one of the fundamental vocabularies in the architecture which are around the models and modeling process, then explore the different perspectives and definitions of them. Moreover, highlight my perspectives and my agreement to the other experienced authors and architects. First, let us start with the model.

The Architecture and levels of designs dilemma

April 29, 2019April 29, 2019Mohamed Sami

The software industry is considered a new industry compared to other old industries like automotive, banking, manufacturing, …etc, which makes professionals from different industries may not able to understand what is the role of the architect? what is the difference between architecture levels Why the architecture is important and when it is needed?

There is a lot of mix between the architecture roles, from enterprise architect, Business architect, data architect, system architect, infrastructure architect, software architect …etc? Moreover, there is a lot of misunderstanding about the different levels of architecture and design. Even some of the software engineers may not know the difference when each level is needed. I explained before the difference between the software architecture, software design, and software structure in this article, while it needs some extra illustration.

This article mainly will focus on why the architecture is important and when and what are the different levels from conceptual to the detailed design level from the software architecture perspective. So, let us start.

Trade-off Analysis Technique – Make the decision easier

September 23, 2017November 10, 2018Mohamed Sami

In our daily tasks, personal or work related, we usually face a situation that we have a variety of alternatives and there is a need for a decision process to pick one of them and to decide what will be the best to choose with a certain level of confidence.

These decisions can range from changing your job, selecting a candidate for a job vacancy, choosing the right software development life cycle, buy vs build decision or others. The common between all of them that they are decisions and they need a decision process.

In this article, we will discuss the process of trade-off analysis, and an example of different alternatives we need to select one of them. Read more →

Architectural Design Decisions

April 29, 2017November 10, 2018Mohamed Sami

There is no doubt how the architecture is important to shape the solution and define its characteristics in the different architecture domains, and how this solution will be adaptable and dynamic to absorb new business needs and handle different stakeholders’ concerns.

In most architecture development processes, different decisions are taken in the different architecture domains. Architects may make different decisions, such as choosing a specific component, in the conceptual architecture and follow a specific architecture pattern.

Difference between Software Architecture, Software Structure, and Software Design

January 5, 2013December 16, 2020Mohamed Sami

Introduction

Over the past 10-15 years, Software architecture has been widely spread in the software engineering community, To the extent that there are currently many career positions for software architect like Technical Architect and Chief Architect. Also, Architecture has involved in many different domains, for example, the architecture used to describe and refer to the internal structure of microprocessor and structure of machines or Network. For that matter, Trying to find one widely accepted definition for software architecture is not easy, and this issue has been introduced in many books when the authors start defining software architecture.