Under
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2011 Edition Summary of Changes

This page summarizes the changes made between the 2000 edition of the Standard and the 2011 edition. For ease of presentation, 2000 text is in this color. 2011 text is in this other color.

Title:

IEEE Std 1471, Recommended Practice for Architectural Description of Software-Intensive Systems

ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010, Systems and software engineering — Architecture description

The first edition was an IEEE recommended practice. The revision is a full standard, jointly developed and published by ISO and IEEE. The new title follows the ISO convention: main element — complementary element; i.e., within software and systems engineering, the Standard addresses aspects of the practice of architecture description. Throughout the document, architectural (adjective) has been replaced by architecture to ease translations.

Scope:

The scope of the 2000 edition was software-intensive systems. The scope of the 2011 edition was expanded to include systems (in the sense of ISO 15288) and software (in the sense of ISO 12207), as well.

Conformance:

2000: An architecture description (AD) conformed to the Standard if it satisfied the requirements of Clause 5.

2011: The revision retains the conformance case for ADs from 2000 and adds three other conformance cases:

1. an architecture framework (AF) conforms to the Standard when it satisfies the requirements of Clause 6.1;
2. an architecture description language (ADL) conforms to the Standard when it satisfies the requirements of Clause 6.3
3. an architecture viewpoint conforms to the Standard when it satisfies the requirements in Clause 7. The requirements on viewpoints was separated from clause 5 because: viewpoints may be part of an AD; part of an AF; part of an ADL; or individually specified as a library viewpoint.

Definitions:

The following definitions from the 2000 edition were removed in the 2011 edition:

• names of stakeholders: acquirer, architect, whose meanings are clear from ordinary usage and/or as defined in ISO/IEC 15288
• life cycle model is defined in ISO/IEC 15288
• system system was defined in 2000, following the IEEE definition, but not really used in the 2000 edition. In 2011, system is a placeholder for any number of things which the reader of the Standard might want to express the architecture of.

The following terms were not formally defined in 2000, but have definition in the 2011 edition:

• concern
• environment
• stakeholder

The following terms were introduced in 2011, and formally defined:

• model kind
• architecture framework architecture framework conventions, principles and practices for the description of architectures established within a specific domain of application and/or community of stakeholders
• architecture description language
The following terms and their definitions were changed in the 2011 edition:

architecting: The activities of defining, documenting, maintaining, improving, and certifying proper implementation of an architecture.

architecting process of conceiving, defining, expressing, documenting, communicating, certifying proper implementation of, maintaining and improving an architecture throughout a system’s life cycle

architectural description (AD): A collection of products to document an architecture.

architecture description work product used to express an architecture

architecture

architecture: the fundamental organization of a system embodied in its components, their relationships to each other, and to the environment, and the principles guiding its design and evolution

architecture ⟨system⟩ fundamental concepts or properties of a system in its environment embodied in its elements, relationships, and in the principles of its design and evolution

The term organization was removed from the definition in the 2011 edition because it has a previously defined usage in ISO:

(1) person or a group of people and facilities with an arrangement of responsibilities, authorities and relationships (ISO/IEC 15288:2008 Systems and software engineering--System life cycle processes, 4.14) (2) company, corporation, government, not-for-profit or other legally constituted body, including associations, clubs, partnerships, government agencies, publicly listed companies, private companies and sole traders, that has its own function(s) and administration (ISO/IEC 38500:2008 Corporate governance of information technology, 1.6.10)

O is also one third of ISO, therefore making any non-discretionary use of the O-term inadvisible ;-)

This narrow definition above does not harmonize well with the notion of "the organization of a system". So to avoid conflict (ie ISO editors hitting us over the head) we choose to avoid the O-term.

3.9 view: A representation of a whole system from the perspective of a related set of concerns. 3.5 architecture view work product expressing the architecture of a system from the perspective of specific system concerns 3.10 viewpoint: A specification of the conventions for constructing and using a view. A pattern or template from which to develop individual views by establishing the purposes and audience for a view and the tech- niques for its creation and analysis. 3.6 architecture viewpoint work product establishing the conventions for the construction, interpretation and use of architecture views to frame specific system concerns system stakeholder: An individual, team, or organization (or classes thereof) with interests in, or con- cerns relative to, a system. ¢system2 individual, team, organization, or classes thereof, having an interest in a system

For more about the terms and definitions, see also: [Conceptual Model].

Conceptual model/foundations

Figure 1 in 2000 is split into multiple figures. Terminology about concerns is clarified. In 2000, a view addresses a concern; and a viewpoint addresses a concern. This was confusing. 2011: a viewpoint frames a concern. a view addresses a concern. 2000: A view consists of models. 2011: 2011 introduces model kinds by analogy with viewpoints. A model kind presents the conventions used in a type of model. Architecture frameworks: 2000: briefly discussed the idea of an architecture framework. 2011: architecture framework is defined, and requirements for frameworks conforming to the Standard are given in Clause 6.1. 2011: architecture description language is defined, and requirements for ADLs conforming to the Standard are given in Clause 6.3. 2011: correspondences and correspondence rules are introduced.

For more about the terms and definitions, see also: [Conceptual Model].

Cs and CRs Decisions Viewpoint template
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