System Architecture Overview

Principles

Definition

System architecture is a research domain and methodological framework concerned with the fundamental concepts, principles, components, and relationships that define the structure of a system. It investigates how these elements are organized and interact to determine the system's overall properties, behavior, and evolutionary potential, serving as a critical foundation for system design, analysis, and management.

Ontological type

Core Principles

Evaluation and Trade-offs

Modeling Approaches

Key developments

Key Figures

Explicit Modular Architectures era

Dewayne E. Perry [1] is a prominent figure in the Explicit Modular Architectures era (1986-2001) associated with The University of Texas at Austin [3]. His key contributions in this era include Foundations for the study of software architecture [6], which laid the foundational concepts that enabled explicit, modular architecture descriptions and reuse. Robert J. Allen [2] is linked with Carnegie Mellon University [4] and Louisiana State University [5] during this era. His works—A formal basis for architectural connection [7] (1997) and Using style to understand descriptions of software architecture [8] (1993)—provide formal means to reason about connectors and descriptive styles, advancing modular architectures and cross-project reuse in this era.

Model-Driven SoS Engineering era

Judith A. Stafford [1] is associated with Boston University [3] and Tufts University [4] in this era. Documenting software architectures: views and beyond [7] introduced a multi-view approach to capturing architecture concerns, enabling traceability across views and supporting analysis and reuse in the model-driven SoS engineering of the era. Paul Clements [2] is associated with Carnegie Mellon University [5] and the Chinese University of Hong Kong [6] in this era. His co-authored contribution with Documenting software architectures: views and beyond [7] helped popularize architecture documentation with views, strengthening analysis, traceability, and reuse for large, heterogeneous systems.

Integrated MBSE Architectures era

Mugen Peng [1] is associated with Princeton University [3] and China Agricultural University [4] in the Integrated MBSE Architectures era. His 2016 work on Fog-computing-based radio access networks: issues and challenges [7] addressed core problems and highlighted the role of fog computing in bridging design-time models and run-time operation, a key enabler for scalable, interoperable MBSE-enabled architectures in this era. Flávio Oquendo [2] is affiliated with Université Européenne de Bretagne [5] and Université Bretagne Loire [6] during the Integrated MBSE Architectures era. His 2016 papers—Formally describing the software architecture of Systems-of-Systems with SosADL [8], π-Calculus for SoS: A foundation for formally describing software-intensive Systems-of-Systems [9], and Checking the architectural feasibility of Systems-of-Systems using formal descriptions [10]—present formal modeling languages and verification techniques that support repeatable, tool-assisted evaluation and interoperability across domains for evolvable system families in this era.