IEEE 1471 - IEEE Conceptual Framework For Architecture Description

IEEE Conceptual Framework For Architecture Description

IEEE 1471 uses the following conceptual framework.

  1. A system’s environment, or context', can influence that system. The environment can include other systems that interact with the system of interest, either directly via interfaces or indirectly in other ways. The environment determines the boundaries that define the scope of the system of interest relative to other systems.
  2. A system has one or more stakeholders. Each stakeholder typically has interests in, or concerns relative to, that system.
  3. Concerns are those interests which pertain to the system’s development, its operation or any other aspects that are critical or otherwise important to one or more stakeholders. Concerns include system considerations such as performance, reliability, security, distribution, and evolvability.
  4. A system exists to fulfill one or more missions in its environment. A mission is a use or operation for which a system is intended by one or more stakeholders to meet some set of objectives.
  5. Every system has an architecture, whether understood or not; whether recorded or conceptual. An architecture can be recorded by an architectural description.
  6. An architectural description is organized into one or more constituents called (architectural) views. Each view addresses one or more of the concerns of the system stakeholders. A view is a partial expression of a system’s architecture with respect to a particular viewpoint.
  7. A viewpoint establishes the conventions by which a view is created, depicted and analyzed. In this way, a view conforms to a viewpoint. The viewpoint determines the languages (including notations, model, or product types) to be used to describe the view, and any associated modeling methods or analysis techniques to be applied to these representations of the view. These languages and techniques are used to yield results relevant to the concerns addressed by the viewpoint.
  8. An architectural description selects one or more viewpoints for use. The selection of viewpoints is typically based on consideration of the stakeholders to whom the AD is addressed and their concerns. A viewpoint definition may originate with an AD, or it may have been defined elsewhere (a library viewpoint).
  9. A view may consist of one or more architectural models. Each such architectural model is developed using the methods established by its associated architectural viewpoint. An architectural model may participate in more than one view.

Read more about this topic:  IEEE 1471

Famous quotes containing the words conceptual, framework, architecture and/or description:

    “The dominant metaphor of conceptual relativism, that of differing points of view, seems to betray an underlying paradox. Different points of view make sense, but only if there is a common co-ordinate system on which to plot them; yet the existence of a common system belies the claim of dramatic incomparability.”
    —Donald Davidson (b. 1917)

    “Most young black females learn to be suspicious and critical of feminist thinking long before they have any clear understanding of its theory and politics.... Without rigorously engaging feminist thought, they insist that racial separatism works best. This attitude is dangerous. It not only erases the reality of common female experience as a basis for academic study; it also constructs a framework in which differences cannot be examined comparatively.”
    —bell hooks (b. c. 1955)

    “I don’t think of form as a kind of architecture. The architecture is the result of the forming. It is the kinesthetic and visual sense of position and wholeness that puts the thing into the realm of art.”
    —Roy Lichtenstein (b. 1923)

    “The Sage of Toronto ... spent several decades marveling at the numerous freedoms created by a “global village” instantly and effortlessly accessible to all. Villages, unlike towns, have always been ruled by conformism, isolation, petty surveillance, boredom and repetitive malicious gossip about the same families. Which is a precise enough description of the global spectacle’s present vulgarity.”
    —Guy Debord (b. 1931)