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App Arch Meta-Frame

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As part of the App Arch Guidance project, we've created an organizing frame to help think about application architecture:

AppArchMetaFrame

Anatomy of the App Arch Meta Frame
You can see from the figure, we have a few parts that work together:

  • Scenarios - You can't evaluate an architecture in a vacuum.  Scenarios are the backdrop and the context. 
  • Quality Attributes / Qualities - This is your classic set of reliability, security, performance, flexibility, maintainability ... etc.
  • Requirements / Constraints - These are the user, business, and technical rules that shape your architecture.
  • App Types - This is your overall shape.  This includes Web app, Rich Client, Mobile, ... etc.  While the line may blur, there's important distinctions among application types.
  • Architecture Styles - This includes architectural patterns such as N-tier, client-server, SOA, ... etc.  You can see shifts in styles over the years such as from object-orientation to message-orientation.
  • Architecture Frame - These are the architectural "hot spots."  This is where your key engineering decisions happen.

How We Use the Frame
We use the frame to explore and gain insight into different aspects of application architecture.  App arch is a big space.  We'll be using the frame to catalog and organize our various principles, patterns, practices, and assets.

Keep in mind that this is a meta-frame (so it's a frame of frames.)  We'll have a collection of frames that shine the spotlight on more focused areas.

Feedback
What do you think? ...

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  • Anonymous
    September 04, 2008
    As part of our App Arch Guide 2.0 project , we're creating scenario frames to organize customer problems

  • Anonymous
    September 05, 2008
    As part of the patterns & practices App Arch Guide 2.0 project , we needed to nail down layers and

  • Anonymous
    September 06, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    September 06, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    September 07, 2008
    As part of our patterns & practices App Arch Guide 2.0 Project , I'm scanning Microsoft for helpful

  • Anonymous
    September 09, 2008
    As part of our patterns & practices App Arch Guide 2.0 project , we're consolidating our information

  • Anonymous
    September 11, 2008
    One of my colleagues on the patterns & practices team, David Hill , collected and distilled feedback

  • Anonymous
    September 11, 2008
    We posted an early draft of our guidelines for the following areas: Architecture and Design Guidelines

  • Anonymous
    September 15, 2008
    As part of our patterns & practices App Arch Guide 2.0 project , we're consolidating our information

  • Anonymous
    September 17, 2008
    As part of our patterns & practices App Arch Guide 2.0 project , we've created a set of application

  • Anonymous
    September 22, 2008
    As part of our patterns & practices App Arch Guide 2.0 project , we've put together an arch frame. 

  • Anonymous
    September 24, 2008
    A few people have asked me for an abstract on the patterns & practices Application Architecture Guide

  • Anonymous
    September 24, 2008
    Today we posted our Arch Frame to CodePlex.  Wednesdays are ship days (I don't ship on Fridays.) 

  • Anonymous
    September 25, 2008
    As part of our patterns & practices App Arch Guide 2.0, I put together a short list of resources

  • Anonymous
    September 26, 2008
    I added a brief over deck of our patterns & practices App Arch Guide 2.0 project to codeplex: App

  • Anonymous
    October 01, 2008
    As part of our patterns & practices App Arch Guide 2.0 project , we'll be creating step-by-step How

  • Anonymous
    October 08, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 21, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 27, 2008
    Today we released our patterns & practices App Arch Guide 2.0 Beta 1 .  This is our guide to

  • Anonymous
    November 11, 2008
    Application Architecture Guidance Communiqué: Issue 1 About the Application Architecture Guidance 2.0