Refining the Architecture into Components
As the software architecture is refined into components, structure of the system begins to emerge. Components of the software architecture are derived from three sources:
- the application domain
- the infrastructure domain
- the interface domain
Because analysis modeling does not address infrastructure, one should allocate sufficient design time to consider it carefully.
In order to find the components that are most suitable for refining the software architecture, you need to start by using the classes which were described in the analysis model. The analysis classes in turn are representations of business entities that architecture is trying to describe. You could also base these components on an infrastructure model rather than the business model. If you went purely by the business model, you would not be able to depict many of those infrastructure components such as database components, components used for communication etc.
Whatever interfaces are described in the architecture context diagram imply one or more specialized components that process the data that flow across the interface.
Describing Instantiations of the System
The context of the system has been represented, the archetypes indicating important abstractions are defined, the overall structure of system apparent and major software components are identified, however further refinement is necessary which is accomplished by developing an actual instantiation of architecture. The architecture is applied to a specific problem with the intent of demonstrating that the structure and components are appropriate.
