Understanding solution architecture concerns

Abstract

Modern software system development includes the use of off-the-shelf components in the form of third-party software (TPS). Vendors of TPS products play an increasingly important role in the systems that incorporate their offerings. Modeling these vendors' motivations, in the form of architectural concerns and viewpoints, provides an additional tool for customers evaluating TPS. Such viewpoint-based analysis of vendor-oriented solution architectures can provide valuable insights to customers at the time of TPS acquisition as well during the overall lifetime of the system incorporating TPS. Copyright 2005 ACM.