Experiences applying a practical architectural method

Software architecture has come to be recognized as a discipline distinct from software design. Over the past five years, we have been developing and testing a practical software architecture method at the MITRE Software Center. The method begins with an initial statement of system goals, the purchaser's vision for the system, and needs, an abstraction of the system's requirements. Multiple views of the system are then developed, to address specific architectural concerns. Each view is defined in terms of components, connections and constraints and validated against the needs. This paper briefly introduces the method and describes our experiences with its “alpha” and “beta” applications to two U.S. Army management information systems.