48433 Software Architecture: Engineering

Requisite(s): 48440 Software Engineering
Subject coordinator: John Reekie

This subject aims to provide the student with a solid grounding in the fundamental concepts and practices of software architecture. It assumes that students have a good understanding of the basics of programming and software construction, and of the principles of software engineering and software lifecycles. Through a set of integrated lectures, tutorials, laboratories, and assignments, the student is exposed to and develops skills in the analysis and design of more complex software systems from an architectural perspective. After completing the subject, students are able to:

• understand and describe the system context in terms of stakeholders, quality attributes, and constraints and enablers
• develop and refine multiple views of a software system architecture, based on the conceptual, execution, and implementation viewtypes
• understand key issues in implementing distributed and real-time systems, including networking, distribution, performance, testing and reliability, and real-time qualities, and
• implement architectural prototypes using off-the-shelf components, middleware, and custom code.

Assessment: In this subject, students deal with the major phase of the project life cycle, the architecture and high-level design phase. To make the task more manageable, the project is divided into three parts (three sets of assignments). Assignment 1 is the draft of the deliverable, which allows students to prepare for the main deliverable. Assignment 2 is the main project deliverable. In Assignment 3 students are required to review the final deliverable.

Each student works in a group of six to eight people. Each group has two teams of three to four people focusing on one component of the final deliverable.

The final exam is designed to assess students' individual skills and knowledge of the discipline.

Typical availability

Spring semester, City campus