ARCHITECTURE CENTRIC DESIGN METHOD
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INTRODUCTION
Functionality is a measure of how well a software
intensive system does the work it was intended to
do, but functionality is not all that matters. Various
properties like performance, modifiability, and
availability matter as much as functionality does.
These properties are intertwined with functionality;
they are promoted and inhibited by the structures of
a software intensive system. While many structures
can satisfy functionality, few can satisfy the required
functionality and these broader systemic properties
as well. Therefore, these properties will strongly
influence the design of the system.


ACDM OVERVIEW
The ACDM is a design method for organizations
and teams building software intensive systems. A
software intensive system is any kind of system that
intimately depends upon software to provide its
specified services. ACDM is not confined to use in
Information Technology (IT) oriented systems, or
embedded systems, but can be used by engineers in
either community. The method prescribes creating a
notional architecture as soon as some preliminary
requirements work has been completed.


3 ACDM ROLES
ACDM recommends specific roles for the
design/development team members. Each of these
roles and their responsibilities are described here:
Requirements Engineer – Leads the effort to
gather and document the architectural drivers;
Serves as customer liaison; Assists the Quality
Engineer in the defining “black-box” tests. Blackbox
tests are based on testing the system without any
insight into the underlying implementation.


STAGES OF THE ACDM
The ACDM is based on the philosophy that
architectural design should be an instrument for
turning the corner from requirements (what is
needed) to design (how it will be built). A key tenant
of ACDM is that the system architecture is
systematically designed in successive iterations of
design, evaluation, experimentation, and refinement.