Speaking about digital transformation goes far beyond just hiring people for the IT team. In order to improve business performance, reduce risks, and scale the project, entrepreneurs must consider building a specialized software architecture team.
The process of developing software involves various stages and methods. Among them is the space reserved for software architecture, which creates effective and intelligent software capable of interacting with other systems.
However, if you want to understand more about the essential principles for your company, today we will talk about the principles of this IT field and how it can improve the process of large corporations.
Keep reading and learn how software architecture is fundamental for your business.
What is software architecture?
It consists of organizing a system and its structure. From it, it is possible to establish how the elements of a system should be configured and build communication between them.
Just as traditional architecture organizes spaces in an optimized way and establishes a relationship between spaces and people, software architecture is responsible for distributing the functions of the system and determining what it should do.
Through, it is possible to:
- Establish the structure of a specific system
- Determine how the system will behave
- Indicate how the system will interact with other components
- Establish the system’s communication
- Set the initial aspects of design
- Data synchronization and team structuring
At first, it may seem like abstract information, but think about this: When an engineer, architect, or designer looks at a blueprint, they can identify what is depicted there just by the way it is written.
Software architecture works in the same way. For developers, when they receive information from the software architecture team, they can already understand what needs to be created from there and which steps to follow.
How did software architecture emerge?
The history of software architecture began in the 1960s when researchers were already contemplating the need to structure a system to facilitate software development.
However, it was only 30 years later, with the publication of the book “Software Architecture: Perspectives on an Emerging Discipline” by Mary Shaw and David Garlan, that the field of software architecture began to take shape within the IT industry.
Today, it is even possible to talk about the establishment of standardization for software architecture, such as ISO/IEEE 1471-2000, which has undergone several modifications to make the organization increasingly modern.
Benefits of software architecture
When discussing the benefits or advantages of a proper software architecture implementation, it is important to consider how companies can enhance their outcomes in an increasingly digital and competitive market.
Next, let’s take a look at some benefits observed from the organized implementation of software architecture.
Performance Improvement
Every company desires to become more agile. In this sense, the proper structuring of software architecture can reduce potential problems in system development, thereby reducing maintenance costs and increasing the ability to handle large volumes of data.
Poorly designed software architecture reduces performance as it impacts the work of developers and hampers software comprehension. The more difficult it is to understand, the slower the modification and release of new features for users.
Increased Flexibility
Each company has its own functionalities and specificities. Thus, through software architecture, it is possible to adapt different systems to reach their target audience and achieve financial results.
Risk Reduction and Scalability Enhancement
Large companies aim to continue growing in size or workload demand. With the architecture, it is possible to plan an agile structure that operates quickly and efficiently.
Likewise, it reduces business risks when designed to adapt to different scenarios, and it can also deliver faster features to the public.
As not all IT teams in companies can provide clean software architecture, business owners often seek external solutions to implement and structure their digital development.
Software Architecture Design Principles
The role of software architects is crucial for product design, as well as their deliverables and ongoing support.
However, in order to determine which strategy to follow, in order to avoid the occurrence of errors and make the best decisions during a project, software architecture design principles come into play.
After all, it is only possible to achieve scalability, flexibility, and performance optimization for properly structured software that has little or no tolerance for failures and is reliable.
To address these issues, architects should follow SOLID, an acronym in English that relates to the software architecture design principles that the entire field should adhere to in order to avoid problems with system development.
Next, you’ll find the main principles of it.
Single Responsability Principle
The Single Responsibility Principle emphasizes that each service or system should have only one responsibility, a single objective.
Based on the idea of single responsibility, software is developed with restricted assignments. This way, the audience can quickly understand the function of each system, reducing the chances of errors.
Open Closed Principle
The idea of the Open-Closed Principle is related to the software’s ability to be expandable and independent. This means that it is better to extend certain behavior or functionality of the system rather than modifying it.
Thus, the idea is to be able to bring new features to the systems with minimal changes to the software. This increases the performance and lifespan of the service over time.
Liskov Substitution Principle
The Liskov Substitution Principle is associated with the ability of independent systems (Open-Closed Principle) to replace other services or communicate with them.
For this to happen, there must be similarities between the systems in terms of structure, inputs, outputs, and even limitations. Therefore, similar systems should be able to replace each other without interfering with the functioning of the software.
Interface Segregation Principle
The Interface Segregation Principle states that services should be divided into small, specific, and detailed parts, so that each functionality is independent.
This way, when using software, a person won’t be dependent on a tool they don’t use. It is closely related to the Single Responsibility Principle, where each service has its own objective and purpose.
Dependency Inversion Principle
Talking about dependency inversion means that higher-level or larger modules are not dependent on lower-level models.
Therefore, changes made to the higher-level modules do not affect the functioning of the lower-level modules. The idea is for the higher-level modules to be independent.
Don’t forget:
It is important to highlight that software design principles differ from the actual software architecture, which deals with the system structure and relates to microservices architecture, event-driven architecture, and serverless architecture.
Software architecture design, on the other hand, relates to the structure of the code, the function of each module, and their objectives. Through design, developers can solve problems.
Currently, one of the most widely used software design patterns is the Factory Pattern and Adapter Pattern.
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Now that you already know what software architecture is, its importance for companies, and how it originated, it’s time to think about the digital transformation of your business or increasing the scale and results of your company.
The best way to incorporate information technology into your company is to seek the support of professionals with experience in software architecture and development.
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