Everything I Learned as an Application Architect While Creating my Product

In this article, we explore the importance of solution architecture in small applications, and why having an architect involved can make a significant difference. The author shares their experience in creating a solution architecture document, and how they decided to keep all notes and documents in the form of text files in MD format, providing insights on how to create attractive README.md files with a use of badges from shields, providing document structure and required chapters. The article also covers topics such as defining requirements, managing development tools and libraries, and creating effective documentation for small applications.

• "Are you kidding?" you might ask. "Do such small applications require an architect to be involved?"
• "Yes, yes, and yes!" I would answer.

Generally, architects create a huge document known as a Solution Architecture Document that includes everything. Initially, I followed the same approach, but it turned out to be quite difficult to track changes due to the high frequency of modifications. So, I decided to keep every note and document in the form of text files in MD format, like this one. I also learned how to create attractive README.md files with the use of badges from shields, providing document structure and required chapters.

Requirements

I began my journey as an architect with requirements selection. By selecting the right requirements, an architect can ensure that the software is designed to meet specific business goals and objectives, as well as technical and operational requirements. This helps ensure that the software is scalable, maintainable and meets the needs of both the end-users and the stakeholders. It's worth noting that my approach to selecting requirements differed from that of a product manager because I needed more technical requirements. I divided architect requirements into four parts:

• Constraints;
• Assumptions;
• Quality Attributes;
• and Hardware requirements.

Constraints

Constraints are factors that limit the architect's ability to design and implement a software solution. These factors may include technical, business, or organizational constraints that impact the development process.

I have listed them on the following page in the form of a table with the following columns:

• Constraint - to describe the constraint itself;
• Description - to provide more details about the constraint;
• Business value - to indicate the business value of the constraint (High, Medium, or Low);
• Architecture viewpoint - to indicate the resources required to implement the constraint (High, Medium, or Low).

Assumptions

Assumptions are statements made by the architect about the environment, conditions, or factors that are expected to be true for the software solution to function as intended. These statements are made based on available information, but they are not necessarily proven to be true.

Assumptions are important to consider during requirements selection because they can impact the design and implementation of the software solution. By identifying assumptions early in the development process, the architect can take steps to verify the assumptions and adjust the design as needed to ensure that the solution will function as intended.

Quality Attributes

Quality Attributes, also known as non-functional requirements, are the characteristics of a software solution that describe how well it performs in terms of its operation, maintenance, and evolution. Quality attributes are not directly related to the functionality of the software, but rather to how well it meets certain standards or requirements.

Quality attributes are important to consider during requirements selection because they can impact the user experience, the cost of ownership, and the long-term success of the software solution.

The quality attributes are provided in the form of a table with the following columns:

• Name: to describe the quality attribute
• Description: to provide additional details about the quality attribute
• Motivation: to explain the rationale for selecting the quality attribute
• Measurable Metrics: to indicate the metrics used to measure whether the quality attribute has been achieved or not
• Business Priorities: to indicate the business priorities for the quality attribute
• Architecture Priorities: to indicate the architecture priorities for the quality attribute

Hardware requirements

Last but not least were hardware requirements.

Hardware requirements refer to the physical components, such as servers, storage devices, and networking equipment, that are necessary to support the software solution. These requirements are based on the needs of the software and the expected workload or usage patterns.

It is important to consider hardware requirements during the architecture design phase to ensure that the solution is designed to work within the limitations and capabilities of the hardware that will be used to support it.

Software Architecture Views

Software architecture views are representations of different aspects of the software system that are designed to communicate specific information to different stakeholders. They provide a structured way to organize and present information about the architecture of the software system. By using software architecture views, architects can ensure that all stakeholders have a clear understanding of the system and its architecture, which can help to avoid misunderstandings and ensure that the system is designed to meet the needs of all stakeholders.

I created three Software architecture views:

• Context view,
• Functional view,
• and Deployment view.

I used Mermaid.js as it is supported now by GitHub.

Context view

A Context view is a type of software architecture view that provides a high-level overview of the software system and its external environment.

It shows the relationships between the software system and its users, other systems, and external entities.

The Context view is useful for stakeholders who need a high-level understanding of the software system and its contexts, such as business analysts, project managers, or system owners.

Functional view

A Functional view is a type of software architecture view that focuses on the functional or behavioral aspects of the software system. It describes the functional elements or components of the system and how they interact with each other to perform the desired tasks or functions.

The Functional view is useful for software architects, developers, and testers who need to understand the functional requirements of the system and how they are implemented.

Deployment view

A Deployment view is a type of software architecture view that describes how the software system is deployed or installed in the computing environment. It shows the physical elements of the system, such as servers, networks, and storage devices, and how they are connected and configured to support the software system.

The Deployment view is useful for system administrators, operations teams, and infrastructure specialists who need to understand how the software system is deployed and managed in the computing environment.

Since the FVA Tool Set can be deployed using only one node and a few processes, I provided a simple text description for the Deployment view.

Tools, libraries and languages

At some point, I realized that I needed a better way to manage the various IDEs, UI and command line tools, libraries, and languages that I use.

Tools and libraries

I compiled a list of all the tools and libraries that I used for development and presented them in a table on the project's GitHub page. The table includes the following columns:

• Name the name of the tool/library,
• Purpose: its intended purpose,
• Version: the version I used,
• License: the license it is distributed under,
• Environment: the platform on which it can be run,
• and Comment: any additional information I wanted to provide.

Initially, the list was much longer, but as some of the tools/libraries became outdated, I moved them to a separate table using the same format. You can find the old dependencies list here.

Languages

I just used plain text to describe the programming languages the FVA Software uses.

Licenses

Undeniably, we should remember about licenses. As FVA Software uses third-party tools and libraries, their respective licenses should be included in the code. In addition, I had to create the FVA License and gained an understanding of what a license is and how to create one.