IEEE 1471-2000

The purpose of this standard is to facilitate the expression and communication of architectures and thereby lay a foundation for quality and cost gains through standardization of elements and practices for architectural description. Despite significant efforts to improve engineering practices and technologies, software-intensive systems continue to present formidable risks and difficulties in their design, construction, deployment and evolution. Recent attempts to address these difficulties have focused on the earliest period of design decision-making and evaluation, increasingly referred to as the “architectural level” of system development. The phrases “architectural level” and “architecture” are widely, if imprecisely, used. Their use reflects acceptance of an architectural metaphor in the analysis and development of software-intensive systems. A key premise of this metaphor is that important decisions may be made early in system development in a manner similar to the early decision-making found in the civil architecture profession. Many innovations are resulting from this attention to the architectural level, among them architectural description languages and associated tools and environments, architectural frameworks, models and patterns, and techniques for architectural analysis, evaluation and architecture-based reuse. While these efforts differ considerably in important aspects, sufficient commonality exists to warrant the development of a recommended practice to codify their common elements. These innovations are occurring, and maturing, rapidly within many research and application communities, and they reflect differing interests, influences, insights, and intentions. There is a general consensus on the importance of the “architectural level of systems development,” and that that level consists of early decision-making about overall design structure, goals, requirements, and development strategies. However, there has not yet emerged any reliable consensus on a precise definition of a system’s “architecture,” how it should be described, what uses such descriptions may serve, or where and when it should be defined. The boundaries and relationships between architectural trends and practices and other practices, and between architectural technology and other technology, are not yet widely recognized. In such situations, progress often depends on mediating influences. Potential adopters of architectural practices and technology need a frame of reference within which to address implementation and adoption decisions. Technology developers need a frame of reference within which to communicate the motivating concepts of their technology, and to accumulate and appreciate feedback from early adoption. To these ends, this standard is intended to reflect generally accepted trends in practices for architectural description and to provide a technical framework for further evolution in this area. Furtheremore, it establishes a conceptual framework of concepts and terms of reference within which future developments in system architectural technology can be deployed. This standard codifies those elements on which there is consensus; specifically the use of multiple views, reusable specifications for models within views, and the relation of architecture to system context.