Buskerud University Systems Engineering vs. System Architecting Based on the description of systems architecture provided that I have attached , think abou

Buskerud University Systems Engineering vs. System Architecting Based on the description of systems architecture provided that I have attached , think about its differences with systems engineering. Which of them is involved more in the design of a system?Write about 2-3 paragraphs (about 200-300 words) The Role and Task of the System Architect
Blah
Blah
V4 a a
Idea
IO
think,
analyze
listen, talk,
walk around
design,
assist project leader
brainstorm, with work breakdown,
explain
schedule, risks
present,
meet, teach,
discuss
Spec
Report
Design
test,
integrate
write,
consolidate,
browse
read,
review
travel to
customer,
supplier,
conference
provide
vision and
leadership
Gerrit Muller
Buskerud University Collge
Frogs vei 41 P.O. Box 235, NO-3603 Kongsberg Norway
gaudisite@gmail.com
This paper has been integrated in the book “Systems Architecting: A Business
Perspective”, http://www.gaudisite.nl/SABP.html, published by
CRC Press in 2011.
Abstract
The role of the system architect is described from three viewpoints: deliverables,
responsibilities and activities. This description shows the inherent tension in this
role: a small set of hard deliverables, covering a fuzzy set of responsibilities, hiding
an enormous amount of barely visible day-to-day work.
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version: 2.0
status: concept
June 23, 2016
1
Introduction
Architects and organizations are often struggling with the role of the system architect
(or software architect or any other kind of architect). This struggle is partially
caused by the intangible nature of the responsibilities of the architect. At the other
hand (good) architects are highly appreciated, even if their quantifiable output is
low.
This article starts with specific deliverables, then discusses the more abstract
responsibilities and, finally, discusses the day to day activities of an architect.
The role of the software architect is nicely discussed in [1].
2
Deliverables of the System Architect
We start at looking for the tangible output that is expected from architects. Project
leaders and program managers do expect deliverables to be finished at appropriate milestones. Most Product Creation Processes define the deliverables of a
System Architect to be artifacts such as documents or models. These artifacts are
symbolized by the stack in Figure 1.
Report
Report
Report
Spec
Spec
Spec
Design
Design
Design
Figure 1: Deliverables of a system architect consists of artifacts forming a stack of
paper when printed
Figure 2 shows the main deliverables of a System Architect more specific.
Quite often the System Architect does not even produce all deliverables mentioned
here, but the architect does take the responsibility for these deliverables by coordinating and integrating contributions of others. Note that some of these deliverables
are part of the Policy and Planning Process.
3
System Architect Responsibilities
The System Architect has a limited set of primary responsibilities, as visualized in
figure 3. The primary responsibilities are:
Balance of system properties as well as internal design properties. The system
should be balanced: for example, the cost of subsystems should correspond
Gerrit Muller
The Role and Task of the System Architect
June 23, 2016
version: 2.0
Buskerud University Collge
page: 1
Customer and Life-Cycle Needs (what is needed)
System Specification (what will be realized)
Design Specification (how the system will be realized)
Verification Specification (how the system will be verified)
Verification Report (the result of the verification)
Feasibility Report (the results of a feasibility study)
Roadmap
Figure 2: More specific list of deliverables of a System Architect
with its added value in terms of functionality and performance. Architecting is a continuous balancing act in many incomparable dimensions and
quantities.
Consistency across many organizational and design boundaries; From needs to
implementation details, from system level to detailed implementation.
Decomposition, Integration Decomposition is the standard answer in dealing with
complex and big problems. Decomposing Systems in subsystems, subsystems
in modules et cetera is a major responsibility of the architect. In most
systems many decomposition dimensions are required: physical, logical,
functional, and many more, see [3]. The complementary action of decomposition, however, is integration. The integral functioning and performance
of the system is the ultimate goal of product creation, which emphasizes
the importance of integration. In practice integration is much more difficult
than decomposition, in fact the architect must decompose in such a way that
integration is feasible.
Overview of the entire system and its context helps to make sensible specification
and design decisions. The architect should provide overview to all members
of the product creation team. Most of these members have a very limited
horizon. The architect should help them by providing proper context information to make local design decisions.
Elegance, Simplicity are properties of a “good” architecture. The dangerous aspect
of this responsibility is the highly subjective nature of elegance and simplicity.
The appreciation of simplicity and elegance should be assessed or acknowledged by others than the architect.
Integrity of the system specification and design over time. The focus of a development team is often wandering over time, sometimes it depends on the
hype of the week. The architect is responsible for maintaining a balanced
Gerrit Muller
The Role and Task of the System Architect
June 23, 2016
version: 2.0
Buskerud University Collge
page: 2
ua
Q
y
lit
Function
Requirement
Spec
Design
Realization
module
modules
subsystem
system
Balance Consistency
satisfied
stakeholders
KISS
Elegance
Simple
Decomposition
Overview
Integration
system
context
Integrity
Fitting
Figure 3: The primary responsibilities of the system architect are not tangible and
easily measurable
and focused development over time. For instance, when cost price reduction
is required then the architect should keep performance and reliability on the
agenda.
Fitting in stakeholder needs and system context, during the entire life cycle, is one
of the core responsibilities of the architect. The architect must connect depth
knowledge with breadth knowledge.
We can condense the primary responsibility of the System Architect as: to
ensure the good functioning of the System Architecting Process. In practice, this
responsibility is often shared by a team of System Architects, with one chief architect
taking the overall responsibility.
The list of primary responsibilities as discussed above is suffering from a lack
of measurability and is rather intangible. Systems Architects also have secondary
responsibilities, where these are primarily owned by other persons. Most other
roles in product creation are much sharper defined, as shown in Figure 4. For
instance the business manager is responsible for the business plan and the financial
results. The project leader is responsible for the schedule and hence for completing
the project in time and within budget. The marketing manager is responsible for
addressing the relevant markets and hence for market share and salability of the
product. The technology manager is responsible for the timely availability of
technologies and related tools. The line manager is responsible for the availability
of the right people, with skills and processes to do their job. Final example are the
engineers who are responsible for the design of their component or module.
Gerrit Muller
The Role and Task of the System Architect
June 23, 2016
version: 2.0
Buskerud University Collge
page: 3
responsibility
primary owner
business plan, profit
business manager
schedule, resources
project leader
market, saleability
marketing manager
technology
technology manager
process, people
line manager
detailed designs
engineers
Figure 4: (Incomplete) list of secondary responsibilities of the system architect and
the related primary owner
4
What does the System Architect do?
Figure 5 shows the variety of activities of the day to day work of a system architect.
A large amount of time is spent in gathering, filtering, processing and discussing
detailed data in an informal setting. These activities are complemented by more
formal activities like meetings, visits, reviews et cetera.
The system architect is rapidly switching between specific detailed views and
abstract higher level views. The concurrent development of these views is a key
characteristic of the way a system architect works.
Abstractions only exist for concrete facts
System Architects which stay too long at “high” abstraction levels drift away
from reality, by creating their own virtual reality.
Figure 6 shows the bottom up elicitation of higher level views. A system
architect sees a tremendous amount of details, most of these details are skipped, a
smaller amount is analyzed or discussed. A small subset of these discussed details
is shared as an issue with a broader team of designers and architects. Finally, the
system architect consolidates the outcome in a limited set of views. The order of
magnitude numbers cover the activities in one year.
The opposite flow in 6 is the implementation of many of the responsibilities
of the system architect. By providing overview, insight and fact-based direction a
simple, elegant, balanced and consistent design will crystalize, where the integrity
of designs goals and solutions are maintained during the project.
A lot of time spent by the architect serves the purpose of communication
between many project members. The architect not only responsible for the system
integration, but has also an integrating role in the project itself. The architect has
to interact a lot with all the people mentioned in Figure 4, in order to fulfil the
architect’s responsibilities.
Gerrit Muller
The Role and Task of the System Architect
June 23, 2016
version: 2.0
Buskerud University Collge
page: 4
Blah
Blah
V4 a a
Idea
think,
analyze
IO
listen, talk,
walk around
design,
assist project leader
brainstorm, with work breakdown,
explain
schedule, risks
present,
meet, teach,
discuss
Spec
Report
Design
test,
integrate
write,
consolidate,
browse
read,
review
travel to
customer,
supplier,
conference
provide
vision and
leadership
Figure 5: The System Architect performs a large amount of activities, where most
of the activities are barely visible for the environment, while they are crucial for
the functioning of architects
5
Task versus Role
The task of the system architect is to generate the agreed deliverables, see section 2
This measurable output is requested and tracked by the related managers: project
leaders and the line managers. Many managers appreciate their architects only for
this visible subset of their work.
The deliverables are only one of the means to fulfil the System Architect Responsibilities, as described in section 3. The system architect is doing a lot of nearly
invisible work to achieve the system level goals, his primary responsibility. This
work is described in section 4. Figure 7 shows this as a pyramid or iceberg: the top
is clearly visible, the majority of the work is hidden in the bottom.
6
Acknowledgements
Nicolette Yovanof pointed out that the text belonging to Figure 2 and Table 2 was
rather incomplete. She also mentioned that some more attention for the interaction with non-architects would be helpful. Chuck Kilmer provided feedback
on ”The Awakening of a System Architect”, which resulted also in an update of
this paper. Byeong Ho Gong suggested a better coverage of the interfacing with
Gerrit Muller
The Role and Task of the System Architect
June 23, 2016
version: 2.0
Buskerud University Collge
page: 5
Quantity
consolidation
in
deliverables
per year
(order-ofmagnitude)
10
driving views
architect
time per
item
100 h
2
shared issues
10
touched details
104
1h
meetings
informal
contacts
sampling
scanning
5
6
seen details
10
10
product details
107
1010
real-world facts
0.5
10 min
0.1
1 sec
infinite
Figure 6: Bottom up elicitation of high level views
Report
Decreasing
Visibility
From Manager perspective
Report
Report
Design
Design
Design
Spec
Spec
Spec
Deliverables
ua
Q
lity
Function
Requirement
Spec
Design
Realization
Responsibilities
KISS
module
subsystem
modules
system
Bla Bla
Idea
V4aa
Spec
IO
Report
Activities
Design
Figure 7: The visible outputs versus the (nearly) invisible work at the bottom
customers/stakeholders. Pierre van de Laar provided textual improvements.
References
[1] Dana Bredemeyer and Ruth Malan. Role of the software architect. http:
//www.bredemeyer.com/pdf_files/role.pdf, 1999.
[2] Gerrit Muller.
The system architecture homepage.
gaudisite.nl/index.html, 1999.
http://www.
[3] Gerrit Muller.
Architectural reasoning explained.
http://www.
gaudisite.nl/ArchitecturalReasoningBook.pdf, 2002.
Gerrit Muller
The Role and Task of the System Architect
June 23, 2016
version: 2.0
Buskerud University Collge
page: 6
History
Version: 2.0, date: June 27, 2010 changed by: Gerrit Muller
• changed status to concept
Version: 1.4, date: June 7, 2010 changed by: Gerrit Muller
• changed tables with deliverables and secondary responsibilities into figures
Version: 1.3, date: June 5, 2008 changed by: Gerrit Muller
• textual improvements
Version: 1.2, date: May 23, 2006 changed by: Gerrit Muller
• extended acknowledgements section
Version: 1.1, date: April 25, 2006 changed by: Gerrit Muller
• added providing vision and leadership to activities
Version: 1.0, date: April 21, 2006 changed by: Gerrit Muller
• updated Figure 2
• added more text for Figure 2 and Table 2
• added text about the interaction between architect and others
• changed status to draft
Version: 0.4, date: December 8, 2005 changed by: Gerrit Muller
• updated reference to Bredemeyer paper
Version: 0.3, date: August 5, 2002 changed by: Gerrit Muller
• Added introduction
Version: 0.1, date: September 13, 2000 changed by: Gerrit Muller, Pierre America
• Small editorial changes only
Version: 0, date: October 10, 2000 changed by: Gerrit Muller
• Created, no changelog yet
Gerrit Muller
The Role and Task of the System Architect
June 23, 2016
version: 2.0
Buskerud University Collge
page: 7

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