1.2 Software Fortress Organization

A software fortress is not just a hypothetical concept. It is a specific, concrete collection of software systems that work together as an integrated whole within the organization. Pictorially, a software fortress looks like Figure 1.1. Let's examine the archetypical software fortress, as well as the various software fortress artifacts that are common to all software fortresses .

Figure 1.1. The Archetypical Software Fortress

The walls of the fortress are designed to prevent any communications from coming into the fortress except through approved channels. The approved channels are the drawbridges . The drawbridges are protected by guards , whose job it is to ensure that only approved communications are accepted from the untrusted outside world. Envoys prepare communications for other fortresses. A data strongbox represents a collection of persistent data that is used by the systems that make up the fortress.

A fortress-specific icon is used to indicate pictorially the general category of fortress under consideration. I will discuss the different categories later. The fortress-specific icon represents the workers inside the fortress that implement the internal fortress responsi bilities ”say, inventory control. The different fortress-specific icons that I use to represent workers are shown in Figure 1.2.

Figure 1.2. Fortress-Specific Icons

I will discuss what each of the icons in Figure 1.2 represents soon. For now, think of them as icons telling us what type of fortress we're looking at. These icons are just examples of what you might choose. If you like these specific icons, they are part of the Art Explosion collection by Nova Development Corporation (www.novadevelopment.com).

It is not important that you use the same icons I use, but it is helpful if you choose specific icons and stick with them. Such con sistency will allow people in your organization to internalize a common pictographic shorthand. If everybody in your organization uses, say, Vikings, conductors, and fairies for business application, treaty management, and service fortresses, respectively, then you can put a slide up like the one shown in Figure 1.3, and everybody can quickly come to a common understanding of the picture.

Figure 1.3. Sample Fortress Architecture

Icons are used mainly to maximize the information content of your PowerPoint presentations and internal documents while still keeping the material light and interesting. However, nobody expects you to draw fairies on a whiteboard. I will describe whiteboard-compatible documentation techniques in Chapter 2. For those of you who just can't stand a little beauty in your lives, feel free to ignore the icons completely and use only the whiteboard-compatible equivalents.