Software Architecture

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What Does Software Architecture Mean?

Software architecture is the defining and structuring of a solution that meets technical and operational requirements. Software architecture optimizes attributes involving a series of decisions, such as security, performance and manageability. These decisions ultimately impact application quality, maintenance, performance and overall success.

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Techopedia Explains Software Architecture

Software architecture is a structured framework used to conceptualize software elements, relationships and properties. This term also references software architecture documentation, which facilitates stakeholder communication while documenting early and high-level decisions regarding design and design component and pattern reuse for different projects. The software architecture process works through the abstraction and separation of these concerns to reduce complexity.

Architecture Description Language (ADL) describes software architecture. Different ADLs are developed by various organizations. Common ADL elements are connectors, components and configuration.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.