Appendix A. Excerpts from a Software Architecture Documentation Package

These excerpts from a sample architecture documentation package are for a system called ECS, a system in use at the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). ECS ingests, stores, processes, and makes available a high volume of sensor data from a constellation of Earth-observing satellites.

Note these important caveats about this package:

  • The documentation is not complete, emphasizing breadth over depth. Each part of the documentation package is illustrated with what could best be called a snippet.
  • Where form or continued content should be clear, the use of [omitted] or [etc.] indicates information left out of the example but that would not be left out of an actual documentation package. This appendix is intended to be illustrative, not exhaustive.
  • The documentation in this package is based on that for ECS but may not accurately document ECS software. Simplifications and fictions were introduced for pedagogical reasons.
  • Comments about the documentation in the context of this book are given in footnotes.
  • Finally, this example uses ten views, many more than most projects would find practical. The large number results from ECS's serving as the example for many of the views in this book.

Chapter 10 noted that either the documentation could all go in a single document, or each part could be assigned its own document. The ECS package takes a middle approach, creating a two-volume set. The boilerplate on the title page of each volume is for compliance with ANSI IEEE-1471-2000, the ANSI IEEE recommended practice for architectural description for software-intensive systems (see Section 11.6).

ECS Software Architecture Documentation

Software Architectures and Documentation

Part I. Software Architecture Viewtypes and Styles

The Module Viewtype

Styles of the Module Viewtype

The Component-and-Connector Viewtype

Styles of the Component-and-Connector Viewtype

The Allocation Viewtype and Styles

Part II. Software Architecture Documentation in Practice

Advanced Concepts

Documenting Software Interfaces

Documenting Behavior

Choosing the Views

Building the Documentation Package

Other Views and Beyond

Rationale, Background, and Design Constraints

References



Documenting Software Architectures(c) Views and Beyond
Documenting Software Architectures: Views and Beyond
ISBN: 0201703726
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 152

Flylib.com © 2008-2020.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net