The company, H, is a large, well-established financial services firm. In order to meet regulatory reporting requirements, they elected to build a data warehouse that would integrate information from 40 applications to feed an application that would produce the regulatory reports.
H put together a team of business analysts …
Here are three additional levels of numerology that just don't belong the discipline of software architecture.
Empiricism. Ideally these are from Physics and related "hard" sciences. Psychology or Economics are "hard" sciences in the other sense of hard -- they're difficult because of the subject matter. The magic number 7 ± 2 …
more ...The company, W, is an e-business startup with a successful, profitable business operation. They were using a mixture of PCs and small servers from various sources to conduct business. They had a base of customers, a positive cash-flow and investment dollars.
W contacted two large software and services companies …
Having problems with possibly the dumbest strategy of all time. It's difficult to work around because it comes from a management interrupt, and all my lands are tapped out. I've got nothing left to do except to sit around and watch bad things happen.
It's not the whole crew; it's …
more ...So, confronted with 1.4M records of questionable data, what do we do?
To write software, we need to understand what we're doing. We need to have a well-defined universe of discourse. This understanding must be documented. The documentation proceeds through increasingly refined levels of documentation.
Sometimes, the first …
The deployment document describes an installation of the system, with specific host names and addresses. This document is the last of the formal deliverables, and forms the basis for an operator's or user's guide.
The deployment follows successful implementation of the design, based on the architecture and requirements.
UML …
An implementation document is prepared along with the software to present the packaging and component structure, including visible interfaces of components. This shows the structure of the final deliverables, and describes the files, databases and other persitent features of the system. This document will also identify all third-party components used …
more ...The Design model generally consists of UML diagrams plus narratives where necessary. The model describes the static structure and dynamic behavior of each class. Additional non-behavioral requirements must also be included in the design document.
In the 4+1 view, the design is the details of how to implement …