CFR5200

Software architectures

J Han

6 points
* 4 hours per week
* First semester
* Peninsula Prerequisites: Software development experience
* Prohibitions: SFT5000, SFT5510

Objectives At the completion of this subject the students should be able to describe a software architecture; recognise major architectural styles in existing software systems; create and choose among, architectural alternatives for a given problem; pursue conformance to an architectural specification during system implementation in a disciplined manner; use existing methods, standards and enabling technologies (including tools) for the above tasks; understand how to use domain knowledge to specialise an architectural pattern for a family of applications.

Synopsis Successful design of complex software systems requires the ability to describe, evaluate and create systems at an architectural level of abstraction. This subject is to provide a systematic study of software architectures and their design. Topics include (1) basic concepts and principles of software architectures: architectural elements and relationships, architectural properties, architectural styles/patterns/frameworks, system architectures versus system implementation, application domains and their architectural needs, system integration, interoperability and extensibility; (2) methods, techniques and notations for architectural analysis, design and descriptions; (3) domain-specific software architectures and reference models, including those for telecommunications software, distributed software, real-time software, and software tools and environments; (4) current standards and enabling technologies for software architecture design: international and industry standards, enabling infrastructures, service and tools (such as CORBA, OLE, OpenDoc and system generators).

Assessment Readings/discussions: 20%
* Practical work: 50%
* Written (3000 words): 30%

Recommended texts

Ben-Natan R CORBA: A Guide to common object request broker architecture McGraw-Hill, 1995
CMU Software Engineering Institute Software architecture bibliography available on-line from: http://www.sei.cmu.edu/technology/architecture/
Mowbray T J and Zahavi R The essential CORBA: System integration using distributed objects Wiley, 1994
Shaw M and Garlan D Software architectures: Perspectives on an emerging discipline Prentice-Hall, 1996
Witt B I, Baker, F T and Merritt E W Software architecture and design: Principles, models,and methods Van Nostrand, 1994