NEW SYSTEMS ARCHITECTURE VIEWS

摘要

Considerable attention has been paid in the last decade or so to the matter of architecting large-scale systems. The U.S. Department of Defense has been prominent in this activity through its C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) Architectural Framework. This Framework has emphasized three views of an architecture, namely: operational, systems, and technical. The IEEE has put forth its views of an architecture as: functional, physical and foundation. Various other researchers and practitioners, including this author, have examined several architecting methods and procedures. In this paper, new architecture views are presented, based upon this author's architecting construction, i.e., Eisner's Architecting Method (EAM). These new views are derived specifically from the EAM, whose short form includes the three critical views of: synthesis, analysis, and cost-effectiveness. Areas of focus for these new views include system alternatives, requirements, risk, elements of performance, functional design features, interoperability, and others. A rationale for each of these is also provided. Since the EAM is a prescriptive procedure that leads directly to the three critical views, the new views are "spinoffs" that allow the architect to , use data that is generated as part of the architecting process. These illustrative new views also set the stage for further elaboration, dependent upon the perspectives of different stakeholders, whether they be technical, management, user-oriented, acquisition-focused, or programmatic. These new views tend to fully integrate the architecting methodology and the specific architectures that are developed from the application of that methodology.