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This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book

Evaluating Software Architectures: Methods and Case StudiesEvaluating Software Architectures: Methods and Case Studies

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This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book

Evaluating Software Architectures: Methods and Case StudiesEvaluating Software Architectures: Methods and Case Studies

Learn More Buy

2.10 Discussion Questions

1. How does your organization currently decide whether a proposed software architecture should be adopted or not? How does it decide when a software architecture has outlived its usefulness and should be discarded in favor of another?

2. Make a business case, specific to your organization, that tells whether or not conducting a software architecture evaluation would pay off. Assume the cost estimates given in this chapter if you like, or use your own.

3. Do you know of a case where a flawed software architecture led to the failure or delay of a software system or project? Discuss what caused the problem and whether a software architecture evaluation might have prevented the calamity.

4. Which quality attributes tend to be the most important to systems in your organization? How are those attributes specified? How does the architect know what they are, what they mean, and what precise levels of each are required?

5. For each quality attribute discussed in this chapter—or for each that you named in answer to the previous question—hypothesize three different architectural decisions that would have an effect on that attribute. For example, the decision to maintain a backup database would probably increase a system's availability.

6. Choose three or four pairs of quality attributes. For each pair (think about tradeoffs), hypothesize an architectural decision that would increase the first quality attribute at the expense of the second. Now hypothesize a different architectural decision that would raise the second but lower the first.

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