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.
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 Throughout the document, architectural (adjective) has been replaced by architecture to ease translations.
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.
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:
The following definitions from the 2000 edition were removed in the 2011 edition:
The following terms were not formally defined in 2000, but have definition in the 2011 edition:
The following terms were introduced in 2011, and formally defined:
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
architecturearchitecture: 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 systemFor more about the terms and definitions, see also: [Conceptual Model].
For more about the terms and definitions, see also: [Conceptual Model].
Cs and CRs Decisions Viewpoint template