Software Architecture Metrics by Christian Ciceri

Author:Christian Ciceri [Ciceri, Christian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781098112233
Publisher: O'Reilly
Published: 2022-05-25T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7. The Role of Measurement in Software Architecture

Eoin Woods

There are many definitions of software architecture, but in practice, most architecturally significant decisions are related to achieving qualities in the system that satisfy stakeholders, including performance, resilience, and security. Architects often refer to these as quality attributes or nonfunctional qualities.

These important, complex decisions are often difficult to make because they involve significant trade-offs between different qualities. For example, prioritizing resilience may mean reducing performance. Stakeholders often struggle to know what quality attributes they need.

The way architects used to address these complications was to do a lot of “up-front” design and thinking to try to tease out their requirements, consider different trade-offs, make key architectural decisions, and validate them. Today, however, we need to move a lot faster and adapt to change more effectively than this style allows.

A number of approaches, such as continuous delivery,1 RCDA,2 and continuous architecture,3 attempt to make architecture activities happen less up front and more right through the delivery lifecycle. This allows teams to make important decisions later, when more information is available, and support changes that emerge as the system is created.

The difficulty with continuous architecture and related approaches is knowing if you have done enough architecture work and whether you are spending your time on the most important things to maximize the benefit of the work. There is always more to do than you have time for, so you need to be able to choose your tasks wisely—and know when to stop and move on to the next problem.

Measurement is the solution. By measuring a system’s qualities at a specific point in time rather than using your instincts or following a rigid architecture “method,” you can see where you are. And by measuring them over time, you can see trends and work out where you are headed by how those qualities are evolving. Using measurement in this way can guide your architecture activities and maximize their value.

In the rest of this chapter, I will discuss how to integrate measurement into software architecture, and introduce general approaches for measuring and estimating quality properties, as well as some specific approaches for key qualities. I’ll then show you how to get started, and discuss some common pitfalls.

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