Types of Architecture

The type and concrete shape of a software architecture is influenced by many factors. Every software engineer knows that the application domain of a system and its concrete functional and quality requirements have a huge impact. But there are more factors to consider -- and all of them are success-critical for a software project. Four such "other" factors are the system's business model, they way it is operated in the field, the fundamental physical and conceptual properties of its application domain, and the execution environment in which the system runs. Not addressing these factors appropriately can lead to impressive schedule slips, gigantic realization bills, unaffordable total cost of ownership, and ultimately to project failure.

The talks in this track therefore outline the considerations that architects must take to address these factors: how does the business model impact architecture, how do I achieve operational excellence, how does my type of application domain impact the choice of architectural style and technology, and what are the impact and opportunities of the latest advances in hardware. A special focus of the track is product line engineering, where in practice all three factors, are especially challenging to meet, and the impact of multi-core on our architectures, since there we have true parallelism on a single chip.