Software Architecture Foundation

Alexander Lorz, Gernot Starke

• Publisher: Van Haren Publishing
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9789401807425
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book covers everything you need to master the iSAQB© Certified Professional for Software Architecture - Foundation Level (CPSA-F) certification.This internationally renowned education and certification schema defines various learning path for practical software architects. This book concentrates on the foundation level examination.It explains and clarifies all 40+ learning goals of the CPSA-F© curriculum. In addition, you find step-by-step preparation guide for the examination.Please beware: This book is not meant as a replacement for existing software architecture books and courses, but strongly focusses on explaining and clarifying the iSAQB CPSA-F foundation.

Part I: Introduction

This part explains what this book is all about and introduces you to the iSAQB e.V.¹ standardization organization and their Software Architecture Certification, especially the Certified Professional for Software Architecture - Foundation Level (CPSA-F)².

This internationally renowned education and certification schema defines both the subject and corresponding examinations.

Content overview

In this first part, we will answer several fundamental questions:

• Why software architecture?

• Why we wrote this book?

• What is the International Software Architecture Qualification Board, iSAQB?

• What benefits are to be gained from a CPSA-F certification?

Next, we:

• Introduce the iSAQB Foundation curriculum.

• Explain the iSAQB Foundation examination process.

• Show various ways to prepare for the iSAQB Foundation examination.

About Software Architecture

What is the typical life span of the IT systems you work on? If you ponder this question for a while, you may come up with a surprisingly long period of time. Many systems we encountered have existed for years and may continue to do so for even longer. Often, they originated as a small system and evolved into a product or other long-term venture.

During such a long time, a lot of things are subject to change: Functionalities and features adapt to shifting customer requirements and business goals. Technologies which the architecture relied upon are no longer available. Experienced people leave the development team, whilst project and product management changes.

Most software systems have to continuously adapt to such changes in requirements, technologies and even team and organizational structures. The field of software architecture is the engineering science that enables this adaptation process in an environment which is constrained by factors like cost, time to market and availability of sufficiently skilled humans. The software architecture of an IT system is decisive for feasibility, cost- and time-efficiency of its future development: Better architectures lead to better time-to-market and lower maintenance and operational cost.

“The goal of software architecture is to minimize the human resources required to build and maintain the required system.”

Robert C. Martin

Besides technical decisions, software architecture deals with efficient use of human resources, therefore minimizing development and operational costs. It goes way beyond finding a great technical solution, as it aims to find compromises between the sometimes conflicting goals of all stakeholders.

Software architecture helps to achieve qualities like maintainability, reliability, safety, performance, security, scalability and operability. It reduces complexity by breaking systems down into manageable units with defined dependencies, therefore enabling efficient communication and reasoning about the inner workings of systems. Software architecture defines rules and technical decisions to guide the development, maintenance and operation of systems.

About this book

There are already a number of well-established books on software architecture (see Appendix C References for a curated and opinionated list), so why did we write another one?

In contrast to existing books, this one completely covers the iSAQB curriculum in a sufficiently detailed yet compact way and can serve as an efficient and effective study guide.

You will find numerous sample questions, helping you to prepare for the CPSA-F examination.

In case you’re interested in our (Alexander’s and Gernot’s) motivation to write this book - we included some information about ourselves in Appendix A.

Conventions used in this book

	Relevant for the examination: Boxes like this one contain tips or hints that are especially relevant for the iSAQB examination.
	General tips for your architecture: Boxes like this one contain tips or hints that can help to improve your software architecture work in general, which might be relevant for the iSAQB examination.
	Special information: Sometimes we want to focus your attention - that’s where we use information boxes like this.

Our assumptions about you

When writing this book, we had several (potentially silly) assumptions about you (the readers) in mind:

• You work in IT (information technology) and have loads of work to do. Therefore, you want this book to be (relatively) short and compact.

• You have prior experience in developing software systems, and at least a basic understanding of computer programming.

• You want to forward your professional career by passing the iSAQB CPSA-Foundation examination. You may not yet be familiar with some of the iSAQB specific terms, so we have included a glossary, see Appendix B.

• You already have access to books or other resources on software engineering, so we won’t repeat all the basics in this book.

• Some of you might want to teach the iSAQB curriculum to others. You rightfully expect a detailed explanation of what is meant by all the learning objectives included in the iSAQB curriculum. In that case, you may be interested in references to additional textbooks and other sources, so you can prepare your personal training material.

Structure of this book

About iSAQB

The International Software Architecture Qualification Board is a non-profit organization with members from industry, development and consulting firms, education, academia and other organizations.

It is established as an association (e.V.) according to German law with the following objectives:

• Creating and maintaining a consistent curriculum for software architects.

• Defining certification examinations based upon the various CPSA curricula.

• Ensuring high quality of teaching and further training for software architects.

• Ensuring a high quality of certification.

iSAQB defines and prescribe...