The System Context Diagram
We use a system context diagram in the early stages of our Investigative Architecture™ process. It provides a high level functional view of a system and, while it is very powerful for the early stages of functional design, it also ensures you have identified any functional needs that impact the non-functional, or architectural, aspects of the design. Read more
Don’t Get Distracted by the Document
This may seem like an odd blog coming from a company that is so deliverable focused, but it isn’t. A design document is not just a document, but a powerful tool for figuring out an architecture. However, it is easy to get caught up in the “task” of completing the design document and lose focus on deeply understanding the architecture.
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It’s Not About the Tool
For practically every profession under the sun there are tools that make the job easier. From bakers to builders, everyone has their choice of implements to ply their trade. Naturally these tools will range from entry level, toy tools to expensive gadgets with more features and sophistication. Enterprise architecture is certainly no exception.
One of our primary tools for designing architecture, of course, is a modeling tool. Modeling tools help us visualize our design into standard, in our case UML, models. There are a variety of these tools in the marketplace, ranging from basic “drawing style” tools to far more advanced suites with “model awareness”, version control, team collaboration capabilities, etc.
System Architecture Diagrams
Diagramming software systems is still a largely undisciplined activity, despite the many advancements in notation and methodology made over the last 10-15 years.
The typical “Systems Architecture Diagram” profile of a large organization goes something like this: Read more