Systems Modeling and Architecting: Structure-Behavior Coalescence for Systems Architecture
Chao, William S.
Synopsis "Systems Modeling and Architecting: Structure-Behavior Coalescence for Systems Architecture"
A system comprises multiple views such as strategy/version n, strategy/version n+1, concept, analysis, design, implementation, structure, behavior and input/output data views. A systems model is required to describe and represent all these multiple views. The systems model describes and represents the system multiple views possibly using two different approaches. The first one is the non-architectural approach and the second one is the architectural approach. The non-architectural approach respectively picks a model for each view. The architectural approach, instead of picking many heterogeneous and unrelated models, will use only one single multiple views coalescence (MVC) architecture model.In general, MVC architecture is said to be synonymous with the systems architecture. Since structure and behavior views are the two most prominent ones among multiple views, integrating the structure and behavior views becomes a superb approach for integrating multiple views of a system. In other words, structure-behavior coalescence (SBC) leads to the coalescence of multiple views. Therefore, we conclude that SBC architecture is also said to be synonymous with the systems architecture.Systems architecture is emerging as an important discipline for hardware, software, enterprise, knowledge, or thinking systems modeling and architecting. This book focuses on the SBC architecture which consists of a) SBC architecture description language (SBC-ADL), b) SBC architecture development method (SBC-ADM) and c) SBC view model (SBC-VM). An architecture description language is a special kind of language used to describe the architecture of a system. SBC-ADL uses six fundamental diagrams to formally grasp the essence of a system and its details at the same time. These diagrams are: a) architecture hierarchy diagram, b) framework diagram, c) component operation diagram, d) component connection diagram, e) structure-behavior coalescence diagram and f) interaction flow diagram.The iterative and cyclic ADM, being used by a systems architect to accomplish each version management of the systems architecture, shall do the strategic management first and then go through the concept, analysis, design and implementation phases of systems architecture construction. Every phase checks with the requirements to make sure that each version of the constructed systems architecture is what the users want.A view model is a three-dimensional matrix representation of a system's multiple views. In the SBC view model, dimension 1 stands for the evolution&motivation view which contains the strategy/version 1, strategy/version 2, strategy/version 3, strategy/version 4 and strategy/version i (infinite) views; dimension 2 stands for the multi-level (hierarchical) view which contains the concept, analysis, design and implementation views; dimension 3 stands for the systemic view which contains the structure, behavior, input/output data views.Systems could be hardware, software, enterprise, knowledge, or thinking systems. Accordingly, systems architectures could also be hardware, software, enterprise, knowledge, or thinking systems architectures depending on what systems are applied to.Systems architecture used for hardware, software, enterprise, knowledge, or thinking systems modeling and architecting is on the rise. By this book's penetrating introduction and elaboration, all readers shall clearly understand how the SBC architecture helps systems architects effectively perform architecting, in order to productively construct fruitful hardware, software, enterprise, knowledge, or thinking systems architectures.
