Large-Scale Software Architecture: A Practical Guide using UML (Paperback)

~ (Author), Richard Anthony (Author) "The many web pages and books on software architecture have provided dozens, if not hundreds, of definitions of software architecture and related terms..." (more)
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“…a welcome addition…recommended…” (CVU, June 04)

Product Description

Software architecture is critical to the success of software development projects. Unfortunately, many projects are unsuccessful in their attempts to leverage architecture-based development, especially large-scale projects. Lost in a myriad of possible UML diagrams, project teams often resort to ineffective ad-hoc techniques.

The purpose of this book is to enable software architects, their managers, and other development team members to become more effective in directing the course of large-scale software development projects. Written by two experienced architects that have worked in the trenches on many projects, this book provides practical advice for all software teams about developing and capturing critical software architectural concerns.

Leveraging the recent IEEE standard on software architecture and using UML compatible with versions 1.4 and 2.0 this book describes a series of viewpoints for capturing the software architecture and related concerns. These viewpoints convey essential information to users, stakeholders and other members of the development team.

Large-Scale Software Architecture covers:

• a series of UML based viewpoints for capturing software architecture and related concerns

• useful techniques for development of software architectures

• the roles and responsibilities of the software architect and the architecture team

• traps and pitfalls of architecture development

• utilization of reusable and off-the-shelf software frameworks and components

Whether managing, designing, developing or architecting large and complex systems, you will better understand how the software architecture can be captured and represented using this book.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 278 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (December 30, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470848499
• ISBN-13: 978-0470848494
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #344,954 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical, thorough and accessible, July 12, 2005

By	Eoin Woods (Hertfordshire, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

[Review duplicated from Amazon.co.uk]

Jeff Garland and Richard Anthony have written a very practical and accessible explanation of the process of designing and describing the software architecture for a large information system. All of the major architectural structures are covered and the depth of experience of the authors is evident from the solid, practical advice given throughout. There is also a huge amount of practical advice as to how architectural structures can be described using UML, which is particularly valuable.

The only significant criticism I've have is that they don't talk about the quality properties of the architecture all that explicitly. The focus in most of the book is about capturing architectural structures rather than talking about the required architectural qualities that led to the structures being selected. The reader is left to discern this for themselves.

This said though, I'd still recommend the book to any practicing information systems architect.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent guide to designing large software systems, September 22, 2004

By	Brendan M. OConnor (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book presents a very practical guide to designing and developing large-scale software systems. I've been involved in a number of large-scale projects and this is the first book I've found that includes many of the things you usually find out the hard way. Things like how to effectively communicate the design to the team, how to manage iterations and how to document designs and changes to the design.

Since the topic is large-scale systems, the book focuses more on techniques than on specific examples, but it more than makes up for that by providing practical tips and recommended reading references. If you are leading a software development team or plan to, this book will help you on a very practical level.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent ref. on communicating large-scale software design, November 5, 2003

By	"bsegraves" (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews

An excellent reference on what UML diagrams to use to capture the achitecture of a large software project. And this isn't based on the authors' ivory-tower opinions, but on their actual experience of using these diagrams in the real world. We have since used their approach to successfully capture (and thereby communicate to others) the architecture of software projects at our company.

The writing style is a bit dry (there are no humorous anecdotes), but this is more than made up for by being concise.

The book also includes an excellent primer of the various roles a software architect (and other software managers) should take within a large project.