OVERVIEW

As discussed in the previous chapters, an architectural style is an abstraction of the structural designs of a family of software systems. These styles serve as idiomatic patterns of system organisation. They have been developed over the years as designers recognised the values of specific organisational principles and structures for certain classes of software systems. These patterns of organisational principles and structures play a role in software design similar to the notion of architectural styles in other disciplines such as in building architecture and computer architecture. In this chapter, we examine a number of well understood software architectural styles in detail. The objectives of the chapter are:

• To learn various software architectural styles;

• To learn how different software architectural styles are interrelated.

As Shaw and Garlan pointed out [1], based on the notion of software architectural styles defined in the previous chapter, a particular style can be characterised by answers to the following questions.

• What is the design vocabulary? An answer to this question clarifies the types of components and connectors that can be used in the systems of a specific style. It represents a part of the design knowledge associated with the architectural style in the form of a vocabulary that software engineers denote these types of components and connectors, and the ways they are combined. However, design vocabulary may go beyond these nicknames of components and connectors of a specific architectural style to include design activities and run-time phenomena etc.

• What are the allowable...